


The Last Snowfall

by Khirsah



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (the slowest), Angst, F/M, Includes ART!, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2018-08-07 18:23:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 47,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7724989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/pseuds/Khirsah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happened so slowly, he couldn’t even say where it all began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vex

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shalizeh7](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Shalizeh7).



> I blame/thank Shalizeh7 for this. She draws the most incredible art and has been working on a Critical Role series that takes my breath away. I started agitating for Percy/Vex and she responded with the art below. Art that beautiful needs a story, so here we are.
> 
> Please go to http://shalizeh7.tumblr.com/ and shower her with praise.
> 
> The song The Last Snowfall is by Vienna Teng.

**If this were the last snowfall  
** No more halos on evergreen  
If this were my last glimpse of winter  
What would these eyes see? 

The night was still.

 _Cold_.

Almost unnervingly open, sky broken wide like a geode, stars a swath of silver light above the silent camp. She felt exposed sitting beneath their watchful eyes, grateful for each cloud that passed across the moon’s wide face. Back in her forest, she’d always had the canopy to guard her. Now she had…

What? Her brother, of course. Trinket. And a handful of strangers she was only just now beginning to like, much less trust.

Vex curled her fingers around the last of the coffee, hunching her shoulders against the uncomfortable feeling of being exposed. They’d banked the fire behind its careful blind and the rest the group was snoring blissfully through the first quarter of her watch. Not even Keyleth had seemed unsettled by the plains—if anything, she’d been _pleased_ with the change in scenery, smiling face tipped up toward the too-big sky every chance she got. It would have been annoying if it hadn’t been so charming.

(Truthfully, Vex was a little annoyed _despite_ being charmed.)

The fire popped, and she jumped. “Come on, then,” she muttered beneath her breath, rolling her shoulders every few seconds. “No need getting jumpy.”

“I can take over if you like.”

Vex startled again at the quiet voice, nearly upending her mug as she grabbed for her bow. She stilled as her eyes met Percy’s from across the fire. He was sitting up on one elbow, white hair falling across his brow, gaze surprisingly direct without the shield of his glasses.

Slowly, she set down her bow, never taking her eyes off his. “That won’t be necessary,” she said, voice pitched low. Then—remembering she and her brother _needed_ these people still—she added a quick, “Thank you.”

Percy tipped his head in silent recognition, gracious as ever. _Graceful_ , though not in the same way Vax was. Percy was… Percy was different. The way he held himself was different, though she hadn’t yet found the words to explain it.

She dropped her gaze, giving their newest traveling companion the illusion of privacy, but he didn’t settle back into his bedroll. Instead, he reached into a small wooden box he kept by his pillow and opened it, settling his delicate spectacles on the bridge of his nose. The moonlight caught on the lenses, flashing at Vex as he rose to his knees, then stood.

Graceful. Elegant. Practiced? Mannered?

 _Something_. The way Percy moved was _something_.

“I told you,” Vex began as he stepped around the fire to join her, bare-footed despite the cold.

“I know,” Percy said. He sank down onto the ground next to her, though not so close that she felt crowded. Aware. Maybe the word she was looking for was _aware_. Not of his surroundings necessarily—at least, not the way she was—but of himself. As if his own body was an instrument he had taken pains to master, held too-tightly under his own control.

She wondered what he’d look like if he lost some of that control. She figured it wasn’t her place to even try to imagine.

To diffuse the growing tension, Vex arched a brow and offered him her mug; he took it with a small nod and pretended to sip before handing it back. She maybe (probably) would have called him on his prissiness if he hadn’t tipped his face up to the too-big sky then and said, “It’s going to snow.”

“How do you know?” she said. She didn’t follow the direction of his gaze, eyes fixed steadily on the ground between them. A cold wind blew, ruffling loose strands of hair. “Are you a druid now too?”

“It’s the smell,” he explained. At Vex’s scoff, he added, wryly, “Well, not _really_. It’s actually the cold affecting the mucus membrane in your nasal passages. It increases sensitivity to smell. Added to the steadily declining barometric pressure and— And you’re not interested in hearing about this.”

She hadn’t been, not really, but Vex bristled at the implication. “What?” she demanded. “Are you trying to say you think I’m stupid? I know how to read the weather better than you.” At least, she had been back before they reached this open, desolate place. Everything she knew was the forest, and the underdark, and the cities she occasionally followed Vax into. This was a whole new world, and she hated how defensive her own ignorance made her.

Percy didn’t know all of that; she wasn’t sure she wanted him to know. “No, of course not,” he was saying instead, turning to her with an earnest twist of his brows. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long while since I’ve had a chance to be with a group for any stretch of time. I suppose I forget that not everyone appreciates a pedant.”

His lips twisted, and the noise he made was clearly supposed to be a laugh. It sounded…brittle, though. That iron-clad control she recognized in the way he moved closing about his throat. “I guess I’ve forgotten how to talk to anyone who isn’t myself,” Percy said.

Vex frowned down at her drink, watching the slow coils of heat escaping the mug. His words… They made something twist up inside her chest—empathy, pity, curiosity, recognition. She remembered how he’d looked when the group had stumbled across him. The rough rasp of his voice. Well _damn it_ , anyway.

“Well,” Percy said, beginning to rise. “In any case, good n—” His words cut off into a yelp when she grabbed his arm, yanking him back down.

“Don’t be stupid,” Vex said, voice still a touch too sharp—she looked up as she said it, though, wide mouth twisting into a more natural smile. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“Doesn’t it?” he said, bemused, adjusting his glasses.

She didn’t answer for a long, long while, taking the opportunity to really study her latest ally. He was handsome, she supposed, in an aristocratic way. Too thin, as if it had been a long time since he’d bothered taking proper care of himself. Tall though willowy, with that grace-not-grace she had noticed. That… _stillness_ she still couldn’t quite pinpoint. He had kind eyes hidden behind those spectacles and a serious brow. Well-shaped lips. A good jaw.

Clever hands that tapped out secret messages against his thigh when he grew nervous.

“Ah—still deciding?” Percy finally asked.

“Shush,” Vex said. “I’m taking your measure.”

“Ah. …and?”

She shrugged a shoulder almost playfully, hiding a smile when that earned a rusty laugh. She supposed it wasn’t the end of the world to let him sit up with her for the rest of her watch. At least with Percy here, the sky didn’t feel like it was going to swallow her at any moment. In fact, she realized with a slow curl of surprise, she hadn’t even noticed its uncomfortable weight for some time now.

Huh. Maybe Percy Von Blah Blah Blah was good for more than a quick draw and a…what had he called it? Pedantic tongue.

She smiled again as a fat snowflake floated between them, lazy and silent. Another. Another. Like falling stars, they drifted around them, catching in her lashes, on her sensible leathers. Vex’s smile spread into a slow grin as they gathered in his hair, white on white and nearly lost in the dark of second watch.

“What?” he said, but he was smiling back. He actually reached up to touch his own mouth as if to hide it from her—or maybe to test to see if it was real. She was getting the feeling Percy didn’t smile often.

“Here,” she said instead of answering. She thrust the mug back into his hands and drew up her legs, wrapping her arms around them. “Drink the rest. Or pretend to drink it and spit it out when I’m not looking: I’m really not fussed either way.”

He cleared his throat and lifted the mug, taking a sip. This time, watching the long line of his throat work from the corners of her eyes, Vex was fairly certain he really _did_ drink. It felt weirdly like a victory, or some kind of wall coming down.

He caught her watching and quirked a brow; she waggled hers back, making him cough and sputter against a mouthful of cooled coffee. “You are,” he began, setting aside the mug and clearing his throat into his fist, “ _very_ strange. Did you know that?”

She grinned brightly and rested her chin on her knees. “Oh yes,” she said. “Vax tells me all the time. So what about you, Percy?” Vex added before she could think better of it.

“Am I strange?” He coughed into his fist, clearing his throat. “Quite.”

“ _No_ ,” Vex tsked, though something in her warmed at the words. “What’s your story? You’re not very big on sharing, I’ve noticed.”

Percy went still again, smile gone as if it had never been. He tipped his face up toward the sky, the flakes landing on his glasses, on those serious brows. “The storm’s going to get worse,” he said. “Can you feel it? We should see about setting up a sturdier camp. Perhaps a lean-to or a snow blind.”

“You know, you don’t _have_ to answer if you don’t want to,” Vex pointed out, watching him stand. Controlled, careful, conscious.

Contained? Yes, that would work as well as anything.

Percy just looked down at her, tall enough she had to tip her head back to see; with the moon haloing his hair and snow falling with a quiet _shush shush_ around them, his (handsome) face was lost in shadow; he was perfectly unreadable again. “I know,” he said, reaching up to adjust his glasses in that way he had.

Then he turned and walked away.


	2. Percy

The world felt steadier— _comprehensible_ again—when he was lost in his work.

Out there, he was risking his life day in and day out without real purpose. Dragons, beholders, ogres, giants—fine, fine, yes, he would fight them all. He’d hold straight and aim true and keep this strange menagerie of…companions? Allies? _Friends?_...alive.

And yet…

And yet the troubling thing was that when the dust cleared and the bodies were looted, the world didn’t make any more sense than it had before. He was doing good, but he wasn’t doing what he knew he _should_ , and that contradiction was a constant dark whisper in the back of his mind. It was the flash of names on the gun’s barrel as he spun the chamber again and again, facing down all the wrong enemies.

He needed justice. No. _Revenge_. Days, weeks, months into his new life, and he wasn’t any closer to _revenge_ than he had been two years ago.

_But is that what you really want, Percival?_

Yes. No. _Damn it._ It was all a dark jumble in his head. Tonight was especially bad, fresh from a nest of basilisks, cold stone still settling in his gullet. The rest of Vox Machina had scattered across the face of the large clearing, each licking their wounds in their own way. He could hear the faint strains of Scanlan’s lute and the soothing _whsk whsk_ of Vax’s blade against whetstone. Keyleth and Pike were sitting with Tiberius, speaking in voices that rumbled like distant thunder. Grog’s steady snore acted in counterpoint—the crack of lightning, and gods, his mind really was scattering if he was allowing himself to descend into useless poetics. There were better ways to find himself again after a hard-won victory.

So he sat under the shade of a tree and he _worked_.

He’d spread his coat across the grass to give himself a better surface, delicate bits and bolts clearly visible against worsted wool. Percy reached up to adjust the second lens of his glasses, focusing as he carefully stripped a screw—tiny brass shavings fell from his fingertips, and the rest of Vox Machina may as well have been a lifetime away.

Except.

_Except_.

Except he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was being watched.

Percy went still, tongue caught between his teeth, shoulders slowly tensing. He filtered out the _whsk whsk_ and the droning snores and Scanlan’s song and the rumble of conversation, sorting each impression as if he were doing inventory of his old stockroom. It wasn’t until he settled on the glaring absence and rapidly worked through probabilities that he looked straight _up_ , through the low-hanging branches just above his head and unerringly into her eyes—catching Vex mid-stare.

She jerked back at being caught, sucking in a startled breath. From across the clearing, Trinket gave a questioning _mrrrr?_ and the whisper of blade against stone went silent.

Percy waited.

“Sorry, darling,” Vex called to her bear as he lumbered over. She sat up, a few twigs catching in her hair—adding a crown of leaves to the incongruously bright feather bobbing against that dark braid—and swung an easy leg over the branch. When she landed, it was with a showy grace that almost made him want to smile; there was something undeniable about Vex’ahlia. Something so very…alive.

Or, no, more than that. Vex was _hyper_ -alive. Hyper-real. A vibrant, perplexing, smiling puzzle that was even now crouching by his side and peering down at the gears and screws and bits and bobs he was playing with as if _he_ were the one in need of figuring out. “And sorry to you as well, Percy. I didn’t mean to spy on you.”

“Liar,” Percy said, but his lips curved to soften the word.

She shrugged a single shoulder. “Probably. It’s only that— Darling, stop that,” Vex added, reaching back to dig her fingers into Trinket’s fur as the bear pressed close. _That_ was a puzzle too. That open warmth, that burning affection she had absolutely no trouble letting them all see every time she interacted with the members of her little family of two. Vax and Trinket…and Pike too, now that he thought of it. Vex seemed to have a boundless capacity to love, and it was only a matter of time before she was turning those easy endearments and crooked smiles on Keyleth. Grog. Scanlan. Tiberius.

_Me?_ He wasn’t sure what to make of that thought.

He wasn’t sure what to make of _her_.

He wondered whether he should warn her off before her curiosity bloomed into something more like friendship. _There’s nothing about me you should want to be near_ , perhaps; or maybe just _don’t be kind to me. I don’t know if I remember how to accept it_.

Gods, there he was being maudlin again. Perhaps he should borrow Scanlan’s lute if he was determined to be in such a mood—lounge about the clearing reciting Celestial poetry about dying stars and the great huntress.

“…doing,” Vex was saying, and he realized with a guilty start that he hadn’t been listening to a word—too caught up in his head again.

Percy looked down, flushing and clearing his throat. He reached up to adjust his glasses—a perfect, awkward trifecta—as he carefully traced back through the words he had missed, trusting his brain even if his manners could use a good beating. “You wanted to see what I was doing,” Percy said.

“Well.” She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. Percy looked up just in time to see the tail end of one of those crooked grins. “You do have a habit of squirreling yourself away and being all mysterious and the like. You can’t fault me for being curious.”

“I can, actually,” he joked. It was always a surprise when she teased a smile from him. “Or, I suppose, I can take fault with your methods if not your reasoning. Spying from a tree? Really?”

Vex laughed. “If you’d given it a few more minutes, you might’ve caught me hanging upside-down trying to get a better view.”

“Your braid would have come in handy in that case,” he said. At her arched brow, Percy added: “Convenient pulley.”

She made a faux-annoyed noise, brushing her braid over her shoulder and twisting it between her fingers even as her eyes dropped back to his tinkerer’s kit. Percy felt a reflexive desire to cover it with his hands, but he kept still and allowed her to study his tools—even as each second that ticked by felt like another layer of flesh being stripped away from bone.

_You didn’t used to be this private_. No, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Even as a pampered boy, he often squirreled himself away to work or read or research long into the night, hiding the fruits of his experiments from the curious eyes of family and staff. It wasn’t the Briarwoods that made him paranoid—it was just the Briarwoods who taught him he had _reason_ to fear.

But he didn’t need to fear Vex. Did he?

“Were you, ah, looking for something in particular?” he finally asked. He didn’t like how off-kilter she could make him.

Vex looked up through her lashes, studying his face again. _That_ , at least, he could handle. She wouldn’t read anything there he wasn’t comfortable sharing. “Yes,” she said. “Actually, I was. I’m trying to figure you out, Percival Von, uh…”

“Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III,” he rattled off.

“Right,” she said. “ _Percy_. I’m trying to figure you out, Percy. We’ve known each other for a while now, right? And I’ve been realizing, no one except maybe Keyleth really seems to _get_ you.”

“Maybe there isn’t anything to get.”

“Maybe you should try a little harder if you want me to buy that. No, there’s something about you. I just don’t know what it is yet. I’ve got everyone else more or less figured. Well,” Vex added, pursing her lips, “Tiberius can be tricky, but I’m pretty sure most of that is for show. You know, flash bang look at how mysterious and wise I am?”

“How do you know I’m not trying to do the same?” Percy asked, curious to see how she would respond. A test, in a sense. A divining rod. “Maybe I’m just some spoiled rich boy from up north who left home because I was bored having everything go my way. Maybe the day you found me was my one truly bad day—I’d lost a bet, or gone in debt, or been caught throwing my weight around the way pretentious twits sometimes do. Maybe I joined Vox Machina because I don’t have anything better to do or anywhere better to go, and maybe I keep to myself because I think—I _know_ —I’m better than all the rest of you.”

There. He would see what she made of that.

Vex leaned back against Trinket, studying his face intently. She had such interesting eyes, Percy realized, not for the first time. Dark, and yet brighter than most anything around her—the brightest point in any room. Framed by thick lashes and caught between wariness and curiosity and…and yes, there: that warmth that never seemed to fail her. It made something in him warm in response. “Well, _one_ thing you said was true,” Vex said, sounding completely certain. As if she’d figured him out after all.

_Retreat_ , a part of him whispered, even as his pulse began to pick up speed. What had started as an experiment, or even a game, now felt uncomfortably serious. _There’s no point in letting yourself be exposed._ But he held his ground—and held her gaze—asking instead, reckless, “And what was that?”

The smile softened, grew a little wistful. _Sad_. “You’re like me,” Vex said. “You don’t have anywhere better to go.”

Percy let out a sharp breath, eyes closing. That…that _hurt_ unexpectedly, as if she’d taken one of her arrows and jammed it into his side. And yet the relief that came in the wake of that pain was incredible. Because _no_ , no he didn’t have anywhere to go. He had no home left, no family left, no past and no future except for death at the hands of the Briarwoods. He had _nothing_ but his gun and these strange traveling companions who’d taken him in despite all that.

And Vex? Vex had a brother and Trinket and her arrows and her sharp tongue and quick wit and…and what else? A mother and father who loved her somewhere? A home? He didn’t think so. Even if the rest of her family still lived, she’d effectively cut herself off from everything _but_ this little band of outcasts.

Everything but him. She had him. And, somehow…he had her.

Strange. Strange to… _have_ something again. To care about something. Some _one_. Companions. Allies. _Friends_. He may not fully understand her or she him, but this felt like the first step toward something more real than he’d had in a very, very long time. Something like…family.

Percy drew in another unsteady breath and opened his eyes, meeting Vex’s gaze. He could see the apology forming on her lips, but before she could say anything to undercut the tectonic shift she’d set in motion, Percy held out a hand. “May I have one of your arrows?” he asked.

Vex blinked, visibly startled. “What? Why?” But she was already reaching for her quiver.

_So that’s what trust looks like_. “Nothing,” he said. Then, forcing himself to go against blaring instincts and return that trust so freely given—to let her see more of him than he’d ever thought possible—he added, “I want to see if I can make any alterations.”

“Like what?” she asked. “Like…to the fletching?”

“Like an explosion,” Percy said, twirling the arrow between deft fingers to test its weight. He wasn’t even sure it was possible, but the sudden wide sunshine _grin_ that crossed Vex’s face made him bound and determined to _make_ it happen, no matter what it took. Dear gods, that smile. “Would you like an exploding arrow, Vex?”

Her whole face changed when she truly grinned. It was the first time she’d ever looked at _him_ like that; it was the first time anyone had ever looked at him like that. It was…inspiring, to say the least. “Oh _darling_ ,” Vex purred, laughing when Percy reflexively blushed. “You do say the nicest things.”


	3. Vex

There were rocks rising up in a sheer cliff-face to the left of them and a dizzying drop to the right. The way back was littered with broken boulders and giants—

Bloody _giants_!

—ringed the crags to the front, showing yellowed teeth with every grimace. They hadn’t noticed Vox Machina creeping up the serpentine mountain path yet, but it was only a matter of time. Vex swept the ridge with a keen gaze, counting…three, four, five, _shit_ , six of them milling about. Maybe more over the rise.

As much as they were finally starting to click as a team, there was no way they could beat _six_ giants in their own terrain. Not that the rest of her party seemed willing to admit as much, drunk as they were off of recent victory.

Vex touched her ear. “You know, now might be one of those _better part of valor_ moments I hear so much about,” she murmured. She was down to just her regular attacks after their previous run-in, every last bit of magic she had long since whittled away. “Vax? You know I can tell when you’re ignoring me.”

 _“Busy now, Stubby.”_ Her brother’s voice over the enchanted earring was quiet as a summer breeze…and just as full of hot air. Typical.

“Well, why don’t you _stop_ being busy and retreat like a sensible— Vax, are you even listening to me? Vax? _Vax!_ Shit,” Vex growled, spotting Tiberus beginning to rise into the air, robes billowing around him.

The sound of Percy chuckle just to her right was soft enough it didn’t startle her anymore. “That sounds like an accurate summation,” he said. “Are they trying to die or do you suppose this is just an elaborate cry for help?”

“It’s an elaborate cry for an arrow in the ass,” she said, refusing to feel pleased when he laughed again. That was happening more and more often of late, especially since the two of them found themselves fighting side by side—at a reasonable distance from the target, thank you very much—so regularly.

Speaking of fighting, Tiberius had nearly crested the ridge; down below, Keyleth was transforming into something big and dark, and not even giants could possibly overlook them forever. “We should,” she began.

“Get to higher ground,” Percy finished, as naturally as if they shared a mind.

She spared him a glance and found herself reluctantly caught admiring the sharp cut of his profile. That happened every now and again—with her entire party, now that she knew the personalities that animated the features that had become so familiar. But, if she was willing to be honest with herself, with Percy more than most. Maybe because they found themselves fighting side-by-side so often. Maybe because his muckity-muck bloodline lent him an elegance even she had to admire. Maybe just because even after all this time, she still hadn’t figured him out and Vex had always been drawn to puzzles.

 _Whatever_ it was, the sight of that profile and that shock of white hair and that cocked gun against the red-and-gold glare of the setting sun…it made her stomach twist and her heart give an annoying little flutter.

Vex shut down the nascent emotion _hard_. “Higher ground,” she said grimly, slinging her bow over her shoulder as she turned to the sheer rockface.

They had very little time to waste. The first of the giants was calling out, voice echoing in an endless roll of thunder down the valley. Tiberius called back, and Grog _roared_. “Shit,” Vex sighed, grabbing rock and trying to haul herself up. There was a jutting sheet of stone about fifteen feet above her, leading into what looked like a deeper alcove. If she—if _they_ —could get up there in time, they’d have a perfect line of sight plus cover from any projectiles.

“Here,” Percy said. He sheathed his gun and stepped to her side—and for the strangest moment, it almost looked as if he were _bowing_ to her. Vex jolted back, startled and (annoyingly) flustered, but Percy simply looked up at her, fingers thread together into a cradle. “Vex, _here_ ,” he said, resting his interlocked hands on his thigh.

“I don’t know what you’re—” Vex began before it dawned on her. She’d seen a fancy gentleman offer his finely gloved hands for a fancier gentlewoman’s dainty foot once, when a mounting stone hadn’t been available. Vex had been loitering about in a doorway keeping watch as Vax pilfered the rooms above, and something about the mannered display had struck her as ridiculous—that woman’s slippered foot in the cradle of his hand, her fingers resting on his fine jacket, her eyes locking with his as she gave him her slight weight.

Ridiculous and undignified and weak and, weirdly, hot. His muscles straining against worsted wool as he effortlessly lifted her.

“Vex’ahlia,” Percy said, eyes locked on her all at once heated face.

“Oh all _right_ ,” she breathed, slipping her muddy boot into his calloused hands and grabbing hold of his shoulder. It felt…warm, from the sun, fine wool stretched over lean muscle. She could feel the way his trapezius tightened, could hear the hitch in his breath as he gathered his strength and hoisted her up up up.

It felt like flying, like she was weightless, like— Vex snagged the outcropping and hauled herself the rest of the way up, rolling until she was on her knees. In the distance, Grog was raging and the first of the giants was lifting a massive boulder; this wasn’t going to be pretty. “Here!” Vex called, dropping to her stomach and reaching for Percy. The fine gentleman from her memory may have demurred if his lady had offered help, but Percy just grabbed her hand and let her half-drag him up, his feet finding purchase along the way.

 _Crash!_ Rock smashed into rock and shards scattered around them. Vex ducked her head instinctively—only to realize Percy had ducked, too, just as he got his knees under him. He was half-covering her, the plane of his back taking the brunt of the impact, his face ducked down so close she could feel his breath stir the feathers in her hair.

 _Oh_.

Her skin prickled in response, but she didn’t give herself time to think. “Come on,” Vex said, pulling back without a word of thanks and drawing to her feet. She had her bow out and ready in a blink, gaze scanning the battlefield. There was Scanlan, darting amongst the broken rock. There was Pike, mace in hand. She thought she might have spotted Vax half-lost in shadow. “This is probably the stupidest thing we’ve ever done,” she added, drawing, targeting, and loosing in one easy glide. The arrow found purchase in a giant’s neck, but he barely even blinked, one ham-fisted hand slamming down toward a furious Grog.

“Remind me to check my running tally later,” Percy said, deadpan. Then, casually enough that she almost didn’t spare him a glance: “Oh, here.”

“Hmm?” Vex swept the field with her bow, loosing a second arrow. She looked toward Percy as it _thunked_ into the giant’s neck again, the two shafts bristling there like a growing forest. “What’s that?”

He was offering something, point tipped away from her and angled toward himself. An…arrow? The fletching was her own, but the weight of the arrow was subtly off, tip heavier than it should have been. A complicated bit of wire encased the upper shaft, catching the setting sunlight. “What’s—”

“It may not work,” he said, pushing up his glasses and actually _flushing_. Then he cleared his throat and turned very deliberately to scan the battle zone, free arm extended in seeking aim. “It is a prototype, after all. But if we’re going to add to Vox Machina’s ever-growing list of monumentally ill-advised decisions today, I figured an, ah, exploding arrow wouldn’t be amiss.”

She stared at him. For all the adrenaline rocketing through her system, the battle may as well have been miles away. “An…exploding arrow,” she said. “You actually _made_ it. For me.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. “I said that I would,” Percy said, as if it never occurred to him that people broke their word _all the time_ —constantly, forever, an endless row of disappointments with only her brother an anchor in her life. “If you don’t want to use it, you can wait,” he added. “Perhaps, ah, field test it elsewhere? I—”

Percy broke off with something very like a yelp when Vex darted in, snagging the arrow from his grip—holding it safely away from the both of them—and planted a kiss to his cheek.

His skin was warm, and he smelled like leather and black powder and gun oil and…tea, maybe, or old books. Something comforting, anyway. The flush that had nearly faded flared anew. “What was, I, yes,” Percy said, tripping over his words in a way she’d never witnessed before; it was ridiculously charming. “What was that for?”

“You gave me a present,” she said, when what she meant was _you kept your word_. Whatever, it was the same thing after all, now wasn’t it? “Now,” Vex added, settling back into stance and nocking that strange new arrow. A gift from Percy; a gesture. She hid a happy smile. “Shall we see if it works?”


	4. Vex

Tiberius, of course, was right at home.

“Ah, hmm, yes,” he huffed, looking around the sprawling library with a pleased look on his face. He’d been agitating for a visit to the city’s famous scholar’s conservatory for weeks now, and Vex was half convinced the group had agreed just to shut him up about it. “Yes, this will do _nicely_.”

“Nicely,” Grog echoed, poking at a tome almost as thick as his head. He couldn’t have sounded more glum. “Right. You figure there are pictures?”

Scanlan rested his chin on the edge of the book’s pedestal and grinned up at the goliath. “In a place this classy? I’m betting the books are chock _full_ of pictures of ladies and their lady-favors.”

“Yeah?” He brightened.

“Only one way to find out.”

Grog immediately set his flaming axe aside—alarmingly close to a towering stack of scrolls—and picked up the crumbling old book. He caught his tongue between his teeth as he began to leaf through it, determinedly searching.

“Um, _Grog,_ ” Keyleth said, hovering close. “Maybe we should…don’t you think it would be a good idea if we… Oh, that looks very, very old. Vex, don’t you think that looks very old?”

She shrugged a shoulder, already bored with the way her day was going. It wasn’t that she was uneducated—she’d sic Trinket on anyone who tried to say otherwise—but she and Vax had found very little use in books over the years. “I suppose,” she said, glancing around. Vax and Percy and Pike had already scattered gods-knew-where. Tiberius was floating up high amongst the stacks making rumbling, satisfied noises. Even Trinket had found somewhere better to be, curled in an armored ball next to a small knot of alarmed-looking researchers.

“Vex,” Keyleth said slowly, making occasional half-hearted grabs for the book as Grog started shaking weathered old pages free. “Don’t you think that looks very _expensive_?”

Vex snapped her gaze back, brows narrowing. Scanlan had already disappeared—mischief managed—but Grog was determinedly bending pages and scowling. “Oi!” she said, snapping her fingers at him; he looked up. “If you cost the party any more funds, Grog, it’s coming out of your hide.”

“I was just,” he began—then lifted the book up, pages spread wide, cracking the ancient spine. “ _Reading_ ,” he added with a pleased smile. As if he’d gotten one over on her.

She refused to let him see her smile. “Uh-huh,” Vex said. “And how’s that going for you? The book’s upside-down,” she added, one brow arching.

Grog looked down at the book, then up to her. Down, up, down, up. Finally he heaved a sigh and snapped it shut, tossing it casually toward the pedestal. Keyleth lunged to grab it, fumbling the tome briefly before catching it in a cradle of sudden vines. “Look, what’s the point in doing this anyway?” Grog asked. He snagged his axe and hoisted it over his shoulder with a solid _thud_. “We want to fight; we fight. There’s no reading in fighting. There’s just—rawr, yeah?”

Vex shrugged a shoulder. “I voted for the direct approach as well,” she said.

Before Grog could say more, Scanlan was squeezing his way back between them, a little flushed. “How about I take Grog out somewhere to wait?” he said, already tugging Grog away. “What do you say, Grog? Want to sample some local ale? Pluck the flowers of this fair city?”

“Oh,” Keyleth said, brightening. She followed in a swirl of red hair and smiles, the old book back on its pedestal looking only slightly worse for wear. “I _love_ flowers.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I…” Scanlan began, squinting up at her before giving a philosophical shrug. “You know what? Sure! Let’s see what you think of this particular, ah, hothouse.”

Vex covered her mouth, hiding a grin as she turned away from the trio. Trinket seemed perfectly content where he was, but the others had since disappeared. She considered following along with Scanlan—for the ale, _not_ the ‘flowers’—then decided at the last moment to seek out Vax or Percy instead. They’d probably be as bored as she was and probably willing to find a diversion of some sort while they waited.

Decision made, Vex made her way through the library, on alert for familiar dark or pale heads. She trailed her fingers across cracking old spines as she moved, lungs filling on every breath with an old smell that was…oddly familiar somehow. Comforting. The library was huge, rising four stories with the main dome straight overhead, letting in golden sunlight from a score of arching windows. There was a sense of sedate electricity in the air—spellwork keeping dust from settling and air circling—and low voices murmuring over the soft _whisk whisk_ of turning pages. A few people looked up as she passed.

She spun, feeling out of place and awkward amongst the scholars, the way she used to feel out of place and awkward amongst her father’s people. Too brash, too loud, too messy by half; little half-human Vex’ahlia with the name of a great man but none of his refinement.

When she knocked her hip into a table, the little man sitting there looked up with a grimace—glaring at her over his half-moon spectacles.

“Sorry,” she said, backing up and nearly hitting the nearby stacks.

He just looked her over, taking in the dried mud on her boots and the tears in her tunic, then sniffed and went back to his research, leaving her feeling young and about three feet tall. Gods, but she hated places like this. She hated how out of step she felt—disconnected and uncertain and—

She looked away, dragging in a breath, then let it out on a soft puff of surprise when she spotted Percy. He was on the next floor up, settled on the marble floor with a pile of books by his knee and another open on his lap. The light hit his glasses when he shifted, and she could see even from this distance the way his brows knit in concentration—as if he were back at his tinkerer’s kit, working.

Vex started toward him without really thinking, weaving through tables and stacks toward a back stairwell that circled around the central rotunda. The second story was a little quieter than the first, with fewer patrons browsing books on…naturalism, she spotted, fingers trailing the gold script signs. Physics. Astronomy.

The sciences, of course. Her lips quirked; how very, very Percy.

She moved on quiet feet toward where he was sitting, bowed over and concentrating fiercely. Vex didn’t try to hide her approach, but he didn’t notice her coming either way. She watched as he dragged his fingers through his hair, then absently tugged off his glasses and cleaned them.

Vex circled around, content to study him as she waited to be noticed. He was really quite…intent. Lashes flickering as he read at a remarkable speed, turning pages at a rate that was hard to believe. He rested an elbow on his knee and dropped his chin to his fist at one point; he straightened with a half-smile, entire body brightening at another. He hunched closer, he rocked back, he clucked his tongue at some idea he disagreed with, and he hummed thoughtfully at one that intrigued him.

Watching, crouched a few feet away with her elbows on her own knees, chin rested in the cradle of her palms, Vex witnessed this whole new side of Percy unfolding before her like the key to a puzzle that had been plaguing her for months. She already had so many facets of his personality figured out, no matter how private he liked to be, but there always seemed to be some new secret to be uncovered. Percival Von…well, bother, _whatever…_ had a sharply clever tongue and a penchant for muttering sarcastically beneath his breath. He had a charming smile when he chose, and a ruthlessly practical nature when it was required. He doubted everything about himself but his aim, and though he looked weak, the damage he could inflict was rivaled only by Grog.

He was wealthy, he was cultured, he was a little bit of an insufferable know-it-all, and, now, watching him devour those books as if he were starving, a new piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

Percy? Was a _nerd_.

The thought made her laugh, and Vex clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the snicker—though not quickly enough. The noise was just enough to jerk Percy out of his focus. He looked up, blinking rapidly in confusion as he zeroed in on her, as if he’d been staring at the sun and needed time to readjust. “Ah,” he said, brows pulling together slightly. “Uh, hello. Is there a joke I’m not aware of?”

Vex crab-walked over, pushing aside a few of those books to settle in closer to him. The book he was reading had sketches throughout—though none of the kind Grog had been after, of course—and what looked like designs of…fletchings? Huh. “Not a joke,” Vex said, letting their shoulders lightly brush together. She’d been doing that more and more often of late, testing the boundaries of their growing friendship. “A riddle, maybe. A riddle about you.”

“Ah,” he said again, as if understanding. Then he frowned. “Wait, what?”

“I don’t know what to make of you,” she said, as blunt as possible.

Percy just cocked his head. “I don’t know what to make of me either,” he said. “I’ve given up trying.”

“Well that’s where we differ, then. Have you always enjoyed this? Books,” she added, dragging a finger across a leather binding. “Reading. Studying. What-have-you-ing.”

The frown began to fade. “Yes, well, who can say _no_ to a pleasant afternoon of _what-have-you-ing_. I like it well enough,” he added when she jabbed him lightly with an elbow. “More than well enough, actually. Growing up, they were— You have to have noticed I’m not exactly the easiest person to get along with.”

“No,” Vex said, confused. “I haven’t noticed anything of the sort.”

He flushed. “Well. I suppose you’re a special case, then. Ah, but growing up, most of my friends were books. My siblings used to tease me for it all the time. They said—” Percy suddenly stopped and looked down. He laid a hand, palm-splayed wide, over the page. “It doesn’t matter what they said.”

She could actually see him shutting down, that openness that had drawn her all the way from the floor below shuttering. Vex reached out on impulse to snag his hand, tugging it away from the page as if to say, _Please, please stop hiding so much_. “What did they say?” she asked. When Percy just frowned down at her hand on his, she let go and tapped the page instead, trying a different tact. “What does _this_ say? What are you researching?”

He glanced at her, then away again. He was so close she could smell the warmth of his scent—and a spark of recognition filled her. _Of course_. The familiar scent she’d caught earlier had reminded her of Percy and Tiberius: old pages and whispered knowledge and secrets she couldn’t yet understand.

But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.

“I…arrows,” he said, a little awkwardly. “I thought I’d do some research into perfecting those exploding arrows. Maybe design something new.”

Vex brightened. “You’re making me _more_?” she asked, delighted. Then, because she had to know: “Why?”

Percy glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, lips curved into something very like a smile. He was bashful, Vex realized, another puzzle piece clicking into place. He wasn’t sure how he felt being caught in an act of generosity. “I don’t know,” he said, trying to play it off. “I suppose you’re just charming with the light of avarice in your eyes.”

She laughed, knocking their shoulders together again. She was filled with the sudden impulse to kiss his cheek, the corner of his quirking mouth, but she swallowed it back before impulse could become action. They were already sitting so close; too close. The scent of him was all around her. This could be dangerous ground she was walking, if she didn’t have the foresight to be careful. “You do say the sweetest things,” Vex said instead, putting a little distance between them again. “Should I leave you to it? I don’t want to be a distraction.”

She started to rise.

“Stay,” Percy said, catching her wrist. He moved fast enough to startle them both, and Vex froze, half-standing, her braid swinging forward. She looked down and met his eyes, startled-wide as hers, as if he hadn’t meant to reach for her.

He let go, but she could still feel the warm clasp of his fingers.

“If you want,” Percy added, wetting his lips. He seemed to look everywhere but at her. “You’re not a distraction. Not one I mind, anyway.” The last was said quieter, almost under his breath, and only her excellent hearing allowed her to pick it up—another puzzle piece, another shiny bauble to tuck away into the hidden safety of her own heart.

Vex settled back next to him, feeling flustered and pleased and confused, even as she faked a casual smile. “Well all right then,” she said, looking down at the book spread across his lap as if she could make anything of the scientific notations. “Let’s make more presents for me, then.”

  


They stayed like that, dark head and fair tilted together as they read, until the sun had left the sky and the library went near-silent and even Tiberius was ready to leave. As they made their way out to track down the rest of their party, Vex hung back for a moment, glancing around—and subtly pocketed one of the books Percy had been most interested in. She felt a thrill of excited guilt, knowing she was doing something wrong and yet not caring enough to put it back as she jogged to catch up with Vax and Pike.

She had few enough things to give Percy as it was…and who would miss one stupid old book, anyway?


	5. Percy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for light mention of blood and a pre-canon death. See notes at the end of the chapter if you'd like to know more.

“I hate demons,” Vex growled, letting another arrow fly.

Just to her right—one hand pressed to his gut, red flowers blossoming steadily across the soiled white of his shirt—Percy gave a hollow chuckle. “As much as you hate dragons?” he asked. He lifted his pepperbox to take aim, but, _damn_ , his vision was blurry. The huge beast kept swimming in and out of view, lost in the ever-deepening shadows of the throne room.

He pressed his fingers tighter, swallowing the pained noise that rose in his throat, and forced himself to focus. If he just… If… He only…

_There!_

He squeezed the trigger, baring his teeth at the echoing _howl_. Perched on the creature’s back, blades flashing, Vax shot Percy a quick glare; the new bullet hole was barely a foot from his hip.

Percy shrugged in silent apology. Better to whittle the demon down bit by bit and let Vax worry about dodging when necessary. It was, after all, the price he paid for daring to get so close to the fiend. Percy reached automatically for the next iron shot, bloody fingers trembling as he reloaded. The bullet nearly slipped from his grasp ( _focus, focus, focus)_ but he had the pepperbox loaded and firing within half a breath regardless. _Crack!_ The demon howled again, twisting against the rain of blows, of arrows, of _death_. Gods but Vox Machina knew this dance by heart.

 _Again_ , Percy told himself, reaching—but the world tilted from one heartbeat to the next and he staggered against a broken marble column, bullet clattering from usually-nimble fingers. _Damn_. His useless body kept trembling, and there was blood spattered across the gleaming floor, slick beneath his boots—blood soaking his blue coat in whorls of deepest violet—blood staining his lips, his teeth, his tongue.

But most importantly, there was blood on the pepperbox’s atari-gane. That wouldn’t do at all.

He frowned down at his gun, fumbling uncharacteristically with the pieces, when a sudden strong arm caught him about the waist. “Careful now,” Vex said, close to his ear. Percy turned his head, dazed. He hadn’t realized he’d been pitching to the side again until she’d caught him—crouched halfway down, his blood staining the green of her jerkin. Her bow, he noticed with a distant sort of curiosity, had been left to clatter to the ground. He must have looked absolutely ghastly if Vex was willing to disarm herself. “Or were you planning on taking him down after a refreshing nap?”

“It is… _possible_ …” Percy said, grimacing, “that I require Pike’s attention.”

“Oh, it’s _possible_ , is it?” Vex teased. Somehow, even now, she was _distractingly_ pretty. Maybe especially now, cheeks flecked with blood, eyes eerily bright. “Here, take cover; I’ve got a potion you can have.” She gave a shift of muscle, as if she intended to haul him behind the broken pillar herself.

Percy caught his feet beneath him, trying to point his gun away from Vex and put pressure on his gut wound and get his balance and gather his dignity all at once— _while_ keeping one eye trained on the howling beast his friends were only just managing to drive to its knees. “Don’t waste that,” he said. Across the battlefield, Keyleth cried out and lightning cracked. “Keep it. You may need it later.”

“Funny,” Vex said. She planted a hand to his chest and gently shoved him back until most of his weight was resting against the column. One dark brow was arched. “And here I was thinking there was a passably charming gunslinger who needed it _now_.”

She dug into a small pouch tied near a hip and pulled out a vial of viscous liquid. One hand remained pressed to his chest—keeping him upright—and she actually _winked_ as she yanked the cork free with her teeth, spitting it out at their feet.

There was so much he could say to that—to their whole situation, to this battle, to the mad deal that had led them here in the first place—but blood loss was robbing him of everything but the most basic thought. At least that’s what Percy wanted to tell himself as he blinked owlishly at Vex and murmured, “You think I’m charming?”

“ _Passably_ charming, dear,” Vex said, catching Percy’s jaw in one cupped palm (surprisingly gentle for all that her grip was firm) and forcing the potion down his throat with the other. “Do keep up.”

He couldn’t reply right away, mouth filled with a familiar sour-slash-chalky liquid. He swallowed instinctively, free hand lifting away from the gaping wound as it began to stitch itself back together again. The tilting, spinning battleground began to take more solid shape—and yet, somehow, what he ended up focusing on was the way her eyes dipped to his mouth, watching with unnerving focus as he swallowed every. Last. Drop. Percy had a ridiculous image of Vex swiping the inside of the glass with a finger and forcing him to suck away the remnants and _good gods_ , blood loss was a terrifying thing if _that’s_ where it took his wandering brain.

He broke away from her grip, cheeks going hot, and caught the vial, tipping it back to swallow the last drop in a showy move before tossing it back to her. “There,” he said, hands far steadier when he cocked his gun and resumed a wary stance; he’d need to cover her when she dove for her bow, obviously. Tit for tat and all. “Are you happy now, Mother?”

Vex snorted as she tucked away the empty vial. “That you’re not about to die in some creepy possessed bureaucrat’s throne room? Ecstatic. You promised me more arrows, after all. _Speaking of_.” She darted a glance around the pillar before jerking her head once; he nodded.

They moved as one, Percy whipping around the pillar to let loose a volley of shots even as Vex tumbled nimbly for her forgotten bow, rolling up onto one knee and nocking an arrow in a single fluid move. He watched her out of the corner of his eye, admiring her strength, her economy of motion, her utter _balls_ as she aimed one of his exploding arrows right for the creature’s face.

“Nice shot!” Percy called, grinning despite himself into a haze of smoke. The beast was bellowing, on his last legs. One huge claw arced through the air. He could already taste victory past the chalky afterburn of the healing draught. Maybe, when this was over, they could convince a local tavern to open a tab for them; it had been a long time since Vox Machina had had such an obvious _win_. They should celebrate.

“Same!” Vex said with a bright laugh, already restringing her bow. “Do you figure we could hit the same spot if we tried?”

“I don’t see why not,” Percy said. The throne room shook; the ground trembled beneath their feet. “Ladies first.”

Her grin widened. “Ooh, now he thinks I’m a _lady_ ,” she teased, pulling back the string; loosing; finding her mark. “You know, Percy, maybe you lost more blood than we thought.”

“Maybe I—” Percy began as he aimed for her mark.

Which is how Vex and Percy found themselves joking, teasing, _laughing_ when the dying beast swung about in a sudden move and snapped its giant claws at Pike…breaking her spine with a resounding _crack_ that echoed through the room in a spark of divine light—flaring golden-white and then sputtering, sputtering, failing.

 _Dying_.

Dead.

Pike clattered to the ground in a lifeless sprawl before they could do more than breathe in the shock of it. Her staring eyes met Percy’s from across the throne room—blue as the winter sky over Whitestone; blue as the heart of a flame—and the thrill of victory transmutated in one terrible moment to ashes on his tongue.

 _Oh_ , he thought, staring down at her child-sized body as Grog _raged_ ; the blood had left his cheeks in one terrible gasp, and all he could do was stand, and stare, and _shake_ as the childish game from a moment ago turned suddenly on its head—bitter, again, on his tongue. Bitter, again, in the pounding of his skull.

 _Bitter_. So very, very bitter. Like black smoke at the back of his throat.

A voice whispered through his whirling thoughts, there and gone again, and Percy lifted his gun with a flare of cold fury, of vengeance—and began to fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning** for Pike's death and resurrection in the next scene.


	6. Vex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for Pike's (temporary) death, part 2.

The guttural roar of the treachery demon shuddered through Vex, so bone-crushingly loud she had to fight the impulse to clap her hands over her ears. She loosed an arrow instead, catching the creature high on its flank, then again at the base of its throat—then again, _again,_ each arrow more furious than the last. She felt consumed, possessed, lips twisted in a soundless snarl as she took aim for the hollow of the demon’s throat (denying the flash of armor out of the corner of her eyes; golden hair cast in a halo about a death-shroud face) and sucked in a staccato breath as she loosed her last arrow.

The thrum of the bowstring underscored the pounding of her heart. The _whoosh_ of displaced air was the voice of her fury, the scream of her fear, and Vex watched as the shaft flared with brilliant light, catching fire the bare moment before impact. When it hit, the explosion blew back the battle-loosened tangle of her hair, sending it whipping about her face in a fine spray of blood and grit and ash.

“ _Finish it!”_ Vax bellowed, daggers flashing, and Grog _roared_ as the beast _finally_ twisted beneath their combined effort. It flailed, writhed, arced—

 _Fell_.

Fell, by the gods at _last_.

The ground shuddered beneath her feet as the demon crashed in a shockwave of cracked marble, but she barely felt it. She barely felt anything at all beneath the white-hot flare of adrenaline. Vex watched as sightless eyes rolled up toward the high crest of its horns, mouth fallen open in its final, terrible, silent scream. Her vision narrowed on its spread jaws, black blood cascading down a row of broken teeth.

She sucked in a breath and held it, trembling on the edge of victory and unimaginable loss.

There was a moment—a perfect _silence_ —as its muscles quaked…then went still. Its body slumped. Everything stopped.

 _Please_ , Vex thought in the long, terrible hush that followed. It stretched around her, caught her, held her. An age was passing in the moment between one breath and the next, and she didn’t dare turn her head to see that shining figure haloed in her own blood; if she just stayed staring ahead, if she just kept sentinel unbowed and unbroken, maybe Pike would somehow be all right after all. _Please oh please oh please._

Around her, the rest of Vox Machina had also gone still as statues. The fever of battle was swiftly fading, leaving a terrible aching hole in its place; no one dared to move, lest tacit acknowledgement made it all too horribly _real_.

Then came a sudden sharp gasp of breath, and “ ** _RARRRGH!_** ” Grog howled into the shocked quiet, lifting his warhammer and swinging again. It sank into the demon’s inert side, crushing bone with a sickening _crunch_. He yanked his weapon back and swung again, and again, grunting at the effort, eyes glowing red with pure devastated rage.

“Grog!” Keyleth cried, but Tiberius grabbed her arm before she could go to him.

“Not now, princess,” he said gravely. “There will be no reaching him without _her_.”

 _Her_.

Vex dropped her bow and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the broken noise. She would have sunk to her knees, staring in horrified silence at Grog’s furious grief, but a gentle but firm hand gripped her elbow and she was being tugged in stumbling steps toward Pike’s broken body, whether she was ready to face it or not.

“What,” she began, twisting to stare up at Percy’s pale face. His jaw was set in a determined line and his eyes were like nothing she’d seen before. _Yet another mask unveiled_ , some distant, shocky part of her whispered, but mostly she was just pathetically _glad_ to follow his lead.

At least, at least, _at least_ she could pretend Percy knew what to do; Percy knew everything, didn’t he?

“There’s her temple in the city,” he said, talking fast and low. Zeroing in on Pike’s crumpled body with a kind of steady focus that was almost unnerving in its cold competency. “If we go _now_ , if we’re smart about this, there may yet be time to revive her.”

“But we don’t,” Vex began, disoriented. _We don’t know how_ she could have said, or _we don’t have enough time; we’d never make it,_ or _we don’t have a way without Pike herself._ Because none of them were like Pike: shining and sweet and somehow unbroken by everything Vox Machina had experienced.

Well. Unbroken until now—and _fuck_ , that was what brought the helpless flood of tears. _That_ was what nearly had her dropping to her knees, body lurching against Percy’s as she stumbled. Vex half expected him to leave her to tumble uselessly to the ground, but he spun as she fell and caught her against him like a crashing wave. One arm banded around her waist, the other fixed in the tangle of her dark hair; she felt the heat of his breath against her cheek.

His voice shook as he whispered against the shell of her ear: “I’ve never been more ashamed in my life,” Percy said in that one mad moment when the whole world seemed to be crumbling around them, “but I’m so very glad it wasn’t you.”

Then he pulled away from her as sharply as they’d come together, eyes burning bright in a shocked-pale face. There was a moment—there and gone so quickly she almost blinked it away—of something broken in Percy’s face before he was turning on his heel, gripping her elbow again and driving them toward whatever plan his clockwork mind was stitching together.

“Grog!” Percy snapped, steely authority in his voice. “If you want Pike to _live_ , you will pull yourself together and do exactly as I say.”

“What,” Vex breathed, still stumbling in his wake in every way—body throwing unexpected sparks. Had he just— Did he mean— What was—

“C’mere,” Vax said, appearing suddenly at their side. He caught Vex’s elbow and gently tugged her from Percy, who slipped away with only the briefest of hesitations. Vex controlled an impulse to clamp on to the gunslinger’s arm, greedy for contact, comfort—but Percy was working with Keyleth and a paper-white Scanlan to gather Pike up—to lift her unresisting corpse—to carry her with muffled exchanged words, plans.

As they took a step toward the doorway, one of her hands swung free, dangling loose (lifeless) from her side, and Vex shook with the force of her sob.

“Shh,” Vax murmured, tucking her face against the hollow of his throat, one hand stroking down her spine. “Shh, Stubby, it’s going to be okay. We’ll get her back.”

“ _How?_ ” she demanded, grabbing hold of her brother’s dark leathers. Grog had whirled on the small group, and Scanlan was talking fast as Tiberius lifted a hand and floated Pike above their heads. Arms freed, Percy and Keyleth were busy wresting open the barred main doors, moving in concert as if they shared one mind. “She’s dead—she’s _dead_ , and we’ll never find someone who can help her in time.”

He pushed back her hair, petted her shoulders, soothed the way only Vax could. “It’s shit,” he agreed under the loud _creak_ and _boom_ of the castle doors. “It’s all shit, but it’s worth a try. For Pike, yeah? It’s worth a try. And hey, Whitey seems to have a plan—never tell him I said this, but his plans usually work out for us in the end, don’t they?”

Vex butted her forehead against Vax’s collarbone, sucking in shuddery breaths, trying to wrangle the dark emotions—hopelessness—swirling in her breast. She turned her head, watching as Percy ( _cold, autocratic, focused like steel and nearly inhuman in his intensity_ ) directed Tiberius down the main castle steps, Pike floating silently before them, armor catching rays of light…

…and nodded, feeling a measure of that comfort take hold again at the reminder.

“Yeah,” she croaked, watching, taking comfort, taking strength. “Yeah, they usually do.” Then, forcing herself to straighten: “All right,” Vex said, dashing away her tears. Vax was right; she couldn’t give up hope just yet. “Let’s wrestle the gods of death for Pike then.”

“For Pike,” he echoed, swiping a thumb across her teartracks, then gently bussing her chin with his fist. “Come on, Stubby: grab your bow and let’s go before they get too far ahead.”

Vex stepped away with a shallow nod, catching sight of Percy again. He glanced back once, as if feeling her eyes on him, and something—something about the flash of light on his glasses, or the set of his mouth, or the remembered heat of his words whispered against her skin, already so strange and unmoored she almost doubted it happened at all—passed between them, stiffening her spine, making her heart pound fast with something very like hope.

He tilted his head and she nodded; the world settled back into its axis once more.

And, silent, shamefaced, defiant, Vex shaped the words bouncing around in her head like shooting stars: _I’m glad it wasn’t you either._


	7. Vex

“All right, that’s it for me. Stay out of trouble and try to get some sleep tonight,” Vex said with a flashing grin, tweaking Vax’s ponytail just to make him sputter. The look he shot her had her laughing all the way out of the inn’s common room and up the stairs. She could have floated she felt so light inside; it was so incredibly good to be _happy_ again.

Happy and relaxed and, and, and _bloody heroes_.

 _Wealthy_ bloody heroes, at that.

She laughed again at just the thought, pushing her braid back over her shoulder. She wondered what her father would have to say to that—to the sheer amount of her worth now. And yes, fine, most of the party’s gold was being funneled back into the construction of their keep, but she’d _had_ it for a time. For a period of weeks she’d been one of the richest, most _important_ people in Eman, and oh, oh that feeling would keep her going long into their next big adventure.

(Longer, if she guarded it closely, like a dragon hunkering down over its hoard.)

Vex hummed to herself, slipping down the dim hallway toward the room she shared with Keyleth and Trinket now that Pike had taken her temporary leave. She didn’t spot Percy leaning against the far wall until she was nearly upon him—and then only because the flickering light caught like twin flares on his glasses, drawing her gaze.

“ _Oh!_ ” Vex stopped, heart giving an unexpected lurch when he tilted his chin up to look at her. A shock of white hair fell across his brow. “I…wasn’t expecting to find you lurking in the shadows,” she said. “Usually that’s my brother’s job.”

“And he does it so well.” Percy straightened, tugging unconsciously at the front of his coat to smooth the crease. “I was just waiting for you.”

Vex hesitated. “Waiting…for _me_?” she echoed. It had been a few weeks (and a few more battles, plus a bloody _parade_ ) since Pike’s close brush with death, and yet every time they were alone, she felt as if a distant bell were tolling inside. Her thoughts were confused, jumbled—oddly hopeful, though she had no idea what she was hoping _for_.

 _I’m so very glad it wasn’t you_.

“Well, darling, now you have me; what do you need?” She smiled—then smiled wider at _his_ smile, relaxing as he moved to join her. There was no tension in his shoulders, no furrow between his brows. No sign that anything at all was wrong. Percy may have been a complete cipher back when they’d first met, but by now they had been through so much together that she felt she was close to understanding him. Close to being able to read the quicksilver thoughts darting like fireflies behind his carefully hooded gaze.

She _knew_ him, finally, at last.

…until, of course, he did something unexpected and she realized she still couldn’t predict him at all. Like now.

Percy suddenly reached out and caught her hand in his. “Come with me,” he said, giving her fingers a light squeeze. Vex was so startled by the unexpected contact that she couldn’t even respond—all she could do was stumble after him as he turned and made his way down the hall. She felt a hot flush creeping up her cheeks, though, gods, that was stupid, wasn’t it? To get _flustered_ by a simple touch? By…

By a _hand_ grasping hers; calloused from the grip of his gun. She’d always assumed, back when they first met, that Percy would have soft hands. Aristocratic hands. But there was nothing _soft_ about him. She could feel the tiny cuts and nicks and burns that peppered his skin from all the painstakingly delicate work he did. She could feel the strength of his grip, and the warmth of his skin. The firm assurance of a man whose greatest work came from the marriage of his intimidatingly brilliant brain and his dexterous fingers.

She couldn’t help but wonder what he felt holding _her_ hand. What he thought. What he wanted. What he— “Percy, where are we going?” she managed, following him not down the main steps to the common room but through the servant’s door at the end of the hall. He slipped through, holding it open for her, and finally (disappointingly?) let go.

Vex flexed her fingers where she was sure he couldn’t see and did her damnedest to keep the swirling storm off her face.

“You’ll see,” Percy said, as mysterious as ever, the ponce. He flashed at grin at her narrowed eyes, slipping the door shut behind her. “You won’t hate it, at least. I can promise you that.”

“That is hardly reassuring, you realize,” Vex pointed out, but she still followed him down the narrow steps and out through the kitchen to the back door. Raucous cheers filtered back from the main room, and she glanced over her shoulder once, wondering whether she should tell Vax where she was going.

But she didn’t. For some reason, it didn’t feel right to involve her twin in…whatever this was. And when she stepped outside and nudged the door shut behind her, Vex was filled with a sudden, insane urge to grab Percy’s hand again and go _running_ down the dark street like they were children. The pure joy was bubbling up inside her again, and even though she couldn’t say why, it felt so good she couldn’t bring herself to question it.

Vex glanced at Percy, barely swallowing back a laugh, and felt something burst like magefire in her chest when he grinned back—wide and crooked and unexpectedly, beautifully uncomplicated.

“All right, then, de Rolo,” she said, lifting her chin with a saucy wink. “You wanted to surprise me…so, surprise me.”

“Follow me,” Percy said, and set off down the street. Vex hurried to keep pace, casting occasional glances at him as they made their way through the city toward Abadare’s Promenade—but of course he gave nothing away. They didn’t need to talk as they wove through semi-familiar streets, shoulders occasionally brushing, silence a comfortable thing. As they walked, she let herself sink deeper and deeper into her own thoughts, recognizing familiar landmarks as they made their way past empty shops and dark houses to the southernmost corner of the city and the rolling hills beyond.

The moon had risen high, bright enough to bathe the fields in fickle silver light as she and Percy slipped out the south gate and left the city far behind. The world was quieter here, the rhythm of night lulling her into a contented peace she hadn’t felt for a very long time. Vex shot Percy occasional glances out of the corner of her eyes. Sometimes, when she caught movement in her periphery, she thought maybe he was doing the same to her.

The thought…the _possibility_ …made her stomach twist in unexpected pleasure.

“What are we doing, Percy?” Vex finally asked, meaning more than just this midnight walk. And of course, the question echoed in her own head, loud with self-doubt ( _what are you doing?_ ) because she may have been a temporary hero of Eman, but she was still the crass, dirty little girl only her twin had ever really wanted to keep, and Percy was clearly so very much more.

“We’re almost there,” he said, an answer that wasn’t an answer, which was maybe the best she could ever hope from him. (Maybe, even, more than she deserved.)

Then, unexpectedly, Percy caught her hand again and tugged her to a stop. Vex looked up, startled, and nearly stumbled at the flash of open emotion in his eyes. The…gods, she couldn’t tell. Friendship, affection, fierce protectiveness, challenge— _something._ There was _something_ in his gaze, there and gone again as he turned from her to look down the hill toward the valley below.

“Here,” he said, letting go and reaching for something leaning against a nearby tree. He turned back to Vex, brows knit in some earnest emotion she couldn’t fathom yet still felt echoing done to her bones—and pressed a shovel into her hands.

A _shovel_.

Vex looked down, then up again. Then down, just to make sure she wasn’t missing a joke. It was an ordinary shovel—something he could have nicked from any number of sheds. He grabbed for its twin, hoisting it over his shoulder in an almost jaunty way, smiling as if he’d done something _wonderful_ and was busy basking in its glow.

And yet they were just standing out in the middle of a dark field, holding… _shovels_.

“Darling, you’re going to have to explain this one to me,” Vex finally said, as gently as possible.

Percy just laughed, and even that was enough to make her smile again. Gods, but he laughed so rarely. “Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I think I’m being clever, and it turns out I’m just being obscure. It’s… _look_ ,” he said, gesturing. She followed the arc of his hand, studying the sloping hill, the rolling green grass, the burbling river. In the moonlight, it looked like any other stretch of land outside Eman.

“It’s a field,” Vex said—then squinted, suddenly recognizing the shape of the river bend. “Wait,” she said. “It’s _our_ field. Isn’t it?”

“Where Greyskull Keep—terrible name, by the way; why do we keep letting Scanlan name things?—will be built,” Percy agreed. “See, if you imagine the blueprints, _there_ is where the main entrance will be. And _there_ will be the north tower. And _there_ the chapel.”

Vex didn’t have Percy’s ability to picture the sketches Riskel Daxio had drawn up and allow them to take shape into a real, live impression of the future keep, but she played along anyway. “And _there_ ,” she said, “will be the kitchen, where someone who is _not us_ will make the meals for a change.”

“For a delightful change, considering how rubbish most of us still are at it.”

Vex hummed in agreement, looking out over their land. Her heart tumbled over a little at the thought ( _her_ land; _her_ worth), but… “All right, but you still haven’t explained the shovels.”

“Ah,” Percy said. He tipped his head toward roughly the spot where Greyskull would be built ( _or perhaps not so roughly,_ Vex thought, bemused; this was, after all, Percy. If anyone other than Daxio knew the _exact_ location, it would be him) and led the way down. He stopped right where he’d said the main entrance would be, swinging his shovel off his shoulder and letting it sink into the earth. “All right. I have been thinking.”

“Obviously,” she murmured, lips quirking.

“Vox Machina has very little in common. It’s the danger of a group like ours. But over time, I’ve noticed that many of us are united by more than restless feet and a longing for adventure.” He wet his lips, looking out across the moon-kissed fields. Vex remained silent, sensing that whatever it was Percy had to say, it was important. Perhaps the most important thing he’d ever said to her.

Finally he cleared his throat. She was near enough, focused enough, that she caught the flicker of emotion on his face—the ghost of some loss, and oh, _oh_ how she suddenly wanted to comfort him. She so sorely wished she knew how. “Percy,” Vex said.

“I don’t have a home,” Percy said, voice so low she had to lean in to hear it. “Oh, it’s still _there_ , but it’s not mine anymore. And I found myself thinking…” He glanced over at her, through his lashes, that _pain_ like a hard jab that left her breathless. “…you don’t have a home either. Not really. So _this_ … This is going to be our home.”

“ _Percy_ ,” she murmured. His features blurred as she blinked away hot tears, overwhelmed by the thought. _Home_. Gods, how long had it been since she’d been anywhere that felt like _home_?

He swallowed hard, looking away again. “Anyway,” he said. “It just struck me that the both of us have been needing something like this. And I thought—as a symbolic gesture, if nothing else—it might be good if we broke ground tonight. If we…started this process that will lead to the completion of Greyskull and a place that can be ours, even if we never can reclaim those pieces of ourselves that we’ve lost.”

Oh. _Oh_. Oh, it hurt, it hurt to hear him, and the pain was so pure, so bright, so wonderful that Vex felt a wild urge to throw her arms around him and… And _kiss_ him. His mouth, his brow, his temple, in a flurry of gratitude over this simple gesture that meant so very _fucking_ much.

A home. Gods, Percy was right. Forget wealth; she had a _home_. And no one, _no one_ , would ever take that from her. She hadn’t even realized that’s what she so desperately needed—but Percy had. Percy had looked into her and had seen everything.

Vex shivered, tightening her grip on the handle of the shovel, then very deliberately drove it into the ground. The earth resisted for a moment before giving in with a soft scrape of rock against metal, and she looked up into Percy’s face with a wolfish grin, deliberately breaking the solemnity of this one perfect, beautiful night.

“Well?” Vex demanded. “Get to digging, then. The both of us are so weak that it’ll take the better part of an hour to clear out a whole six inches.”

He gave a bark of laughter, one hand jerking up to cover it—as if surprised by his own reaction. But Percy shucked off his coat and laid it carefully (prissily) aside before pressing his shovel into the dirt and beginning to dig with her, laying the foundation for the keep that would be their _home_.

(Until she could help him find his way back to the one that had been taken from him…and bloody well _take it back_.)


	8. Percy

“This is,” Keyleth began, lifting her hands. Wet strings of dough hung from her fingers in an awkward spiderweb—stretching, stretching, stretching before suddenly _plopping_ back into the mixing bowl. She wrinkled her nose. “This is… Percy, how is this supposed to look again?”

Percy glanced over, biting back a smile. “Near enough to what you’ve managed that we can call it a tentative success,” he said.

“In other words, complete failure,” she translated, then sighed. “I don’t know how you manage. Yours looks perfect; mine looks like I’m slowly drowning flour one tablespoon at a time.”

“It helps to think of baking as a chemical process,” Percy said, and almost laughed at Keyleth’s expression. “Very, well, I take your point. It helps _me_ to think of baking as a chemical process. It may help _you_ to mentally equate it with, oh, I don’t know, mud pies.”

She looked up at that, antlers casting stark shadows—strange shapes, like grasping skeletal hands that could have made Keyleth frightening if she weren’t so sweet. The beaming grin that crossed her narrow face was infectious, inspiring, even for someone like him. “I _love_ mud pies,” she gushed.

“You know,” Percy said, “I gathered you might. If you give me a moment, I can get this in the oven and help you.”

Keyleth hummed in response, returning her focus to her wet, stringy dough. It was late, and other than the two of them, no one was in the keep. No one had _been_ in the keep since construction had begun in earnest half a year ago, most of Vox Machina scattered to the winds. Pike taking passage to sail the seas, Scanlan touring with Grog to show him what _the good old days_ had been like _,_ Tiberius holed up in some ancient library or another, Keyleth until very recently gone to visit druid tribes, and the twins…

Gods alone knew where the twins had gotten themselves off to.

The past six months had been almost painfully quiet; solitary. Percy had been the only one to stay in Emon to watch over the building of Greyskull Keep. He’d told himself that it would be nice to be alone again, for a time. He could spend hours tinkering without anyone to bother him. He could go to bed when (if) he liked, eat as little as he wanted without Pike or Keyleth fretting over him, leave his tools out without worrying about Grog breaking anything, lapse into familiar long silences and not once have to force himself to speak before he was ready. It was exactly how his life had been _before_ he’d stumbled into Vox Machina, and he had assumed he’d sink back into solitude as if nothing had changed.

But oh, _oh_ it seemed just about everything had changed when he wasn’t looking. Percy was left biding his time, marking each minute as it crawled past. It was strange how long the days had grown. How quiet the weeks. How dark the months. How… _lonely_ he’d been, with only his unwelcome thoughts to keep him company.

 _This_ , Percy thought, glancing over at Keyleth as she fumblingly tried to knead more flour into her dough, tongue caught between her teeth, _against all odds, this is better_.

“You know,” he began, ready to suggest they give up baking and give mud pies an actual try…when Keyleth gave a sudden _shriek_ , jerking forward as if dodging an unseen attacker. She fell against the counter, eyes widening, then going narrow as her upper lip curled. There was a single breath of stillness, of silence—familiar from countless battles—a moment stretching between them as the familiar kitchen reshaped around them into an unexpected battlefield.

Instinct kicked in; the moment shattered.

Percy dove for his gun even as Keyleth whirled, sticky hands outstretched, a sudden wind picking up gusts of flour and yeast. It filled the air in a white cloud, like one of Keyleth’s fogs, and Percy forced himself to adjust to the limited visibility as he scoured the kitchen for whatever had attacked them, Pepperbox extended and finger tensing on the trigger…

…then sighed and tucked away his gun when he spotted _Vax_ in the corner, silently laughing and all but invisible in shadow. The utter arse.

“Welcome back, Vax’ildan,” Percy said dryly, crossing his arms.

Keyleth let out a huffing breath. “You startled me,” she accused. The wind began to die, drifts of flour settling across the floor, the counter—his _hair_. “You know I hate it when you— _oh_!” she suddenly gasped, eyes going wide. A bright grin broke across her face, dazzling in its intensity. “Vax! You’re _back_!”

“Hi Kiki,” Vax said. He slunk from the shadows, giving Percy a slight nod. Percy watched, bemused, as Keyleth flung herself toward Vax, long limbs awkward, hands still sticky with too-wet dough, sharp face broken wide into a beautifully unselfconscious laugh. Vax gave a grunt of surprise, but he caught her deftly enough, arms slipping around her waist in a gentle return hug. “Yeah, yeah, I missed you too,” he muttered against the fall of her red hair.

“You should have written to say you were coming,” she said, squeezing. She was pure sunlight, radiating joy. It almost hurt to look at her. “We would have— Well, we would have least had dinner _finished_. Percy would have, that is; I wouldn’t. I’m terrible. Hi.” She pulled back, laughing, holding up her sticky hands. “I should get washed up. Do you need help bringing your things in? I can help. I can turn into Minxie and you could put all your stuff on my back and…”

Keyleth trailed off when Vax lightly knocked their sides together. “I don’t have shit,” he said. “I don’t need shit. But hey, a tour wouldn’t be half bad. This place is huge.”

“Isn’t it?” she said. “It’s like living in a palace, except it’s _ours_. I’ll just…” Keyleth paused and turned back to Percy, who’d been watching the exchange with growing amusement. “Oh. Do you mind if I leave the rest to you?”

“I think I can manage alone,” he said, dryly. He tipped his chin toward the two of them before deliberately turning back to his workstation— _smile_ growing bigger and bigger and bigger as Keyleth led Vax out of the kitchen, chattering the whole way.

It seemed his family was finally coming home.

 _Stop it_ , Percy told himself. It was dangerous to think of them that way. It was just inviting future heartbreak to open himself up, even a little. But he couldn’t ignore the pleasure unfurling in his chest; he couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face; he couldn’t force himself not to be glad down to his bones that he was no longer so very alone.

And he couldn’t control the way his heart gave a little lurch at the sound of a boot scraping stone…knowing without looking exactly who stood in the doorway watching him.

“So all this time,” Vex drawled, amusement coloring her rich alto, “you claimed you didn’t know how to cook just to get out of dinner duty? Tsk tsk, Percy.”

Gods, he’d missed her. Maybe most of all. “I wasn’t lying,” he said, glancing briefly over his shoulder even as he reached for the rolling pin. She looked as perfect and wild as ever, the fresh wind having loosed dark strands of hair from her braid, her leathers dotted with mud. In contrast, he was an utter mess. There was flour in his hair and smudging his face. He’d long since folded his coat aside and stood in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, shoeless, sockless, forearms bared. He would have tried to pull himself together if he wasn’t positive she’d laugh over his fussing. Oh, well: she’d seen him looking far worse. “As a matter of distinction, I know how to bake, not cook.”

She pushed away from the doorframe, moving into the kitchen. Like Keyleth, Vex always seemed to bring a bit of the outdoors with her. The scent of earth and flowers clung to her skin, with a musky undertone that could only be thanks to Trinket. The incongruously bright feather tucked behind one ear drew his gaze—and all at once, he was dying to embrace her as unselfconsciously as Keyleth had thrown herself into Vax’s arms. Just…lose himself in her for a moment, filling his lungs with the scent of wild things.

Percy cleared his throat and looked down, fighting an unexpected flush.

“…much of a difference, darling,” Vex was saying in that familiar teasing sing-song. She came around the wide counter, snagging Keyleth’s abandoned bowl on the way. “But I may let you off the hook _if_ …”

“If?” he prompted, readily taking the bait.

Vex fell in next to him, giving his hip a gentle bump with her own. “ _If_ you show me how it’s done. I never had much cause to learn, you see. Actually,” Vex added, casting him a curious look, “I’m surprised _you_ did. Weren’t you raised as some lord muckity muck?”

It surprised him to realize that he’d even missed the way she teased him. “Something like that,” Percy said. He dropped his chin, trying to push up his glasses with his shoulder—hands far too covered in flour for the task. “I had…quite a lot of siblings growing up, you see. When you’re one of so many, you find places, niches, where you can be, oh, distinguished in some way.”

He frowned down at the dough, fingers curled tight around the rolling pin. Why was he telling her this? He never spoke about his family—not to anyone. Not for any reason. It was unlike him to slip, but then, he’d been letting down his guard around Vex bit by bit for months now, hadn’t he? Had these last few weeks of _missing her_ broken what was left of his reserve? Or had it just broken _him_?

Percy tensed at the whisper-soft brush of her fingers against his elbow, there and gone again in a breath. “You search for things you can control,” she said, quiet. “Things you can be good at, proud of, even when it seems like you’re bloody useless at everything else.”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, surprised to see naked emotion on her face.

“You excel where you can,” he agreed. “You carve out your own identity in a series of small victories and cobble it together until it almost means something. Reading, mathematics, science, sleight of hand, baking…”

Her lips twisted. “Tracking, hunting, more languages than _he_ bloody ever learned.”

Percy cleared his throat. “You know,” he said, “for the record, _he_ is an utter ass and you are categorically better than the lot of them.”

Vex looked up at that, cheeks flushed a soft pink, bitter smile growing into something real and warm. She reached up suddenly, and he didn’t even _blink_ when she tugged off his glasses; he just watched her, watched the way her lashes dipped, watched the way her lips pursed as she cleaned the lenses with the edge of a dish towel and carefully placed them back on his nose—calloused fingertips brushing the shell of his ears as she settled the frame into place. “Tell me more about how you learned to bake,” Vex said, finally pulling back. She didn’t go far, however, moving to a nearby counter and hoisting herself up, legs swinging. If he wanted, he could reach out and touch.

He kept his hands to himself, of course, but her proximity burned through him; he could feel his muscles relaxing with a strange sort of peace, even as he willingly, willfully, ripped himself open for her curious gaze. Why not? It seemed he’d do a hell of a lot more for Vex’ahlia. “It all started with my mother,” Percy said—

—and the expected lance of pain never came.

He paused, head tilted, waiting for the echo of loss, the dark rage, to come bubbling up the way it always, _always_ did.

Nothing. There was nothing. Just…bittersweet memory, as if Vex’s presence was enough to shield him from that darker part of himself; as if his sheer gratitude at having his friends (his new _family_ ) around him again could somehow inoculate him against the shadows always lurking at the edge of his awareness.

It was strange. He couldn’t tell whether he felt more relieved or alarmed at the idea. He _needed_ that rage if he wanted to see his family avenged. He _needed_ that pain if he wanted to ensure his enemies were slain. He _needed_ that darkness to survive.

After all, who was he without it?

Vex made a questioning noise, lightly nudging him with the toe of her boot, and Percy let out a ragged breath. _Danger_ , a part of him whispered as he looked at Vex. _There is so much danger here._

And yet, for this moment at least, he was willing to put aside his reserve, his worry, his inner demons and just be… _happy_ to not be so alone. To have her near. To have his memories back, bittersweet and uncomplicated if only for a moment, without that dreadful darkness ready to pull him under. “My sister Cassandra and I had been sick, you see,” Percy continued, voice just a little too rough, “and Mother was at her wit’s end trying to find a way to keep us occupied.”

She hummed, resting her elbow on her knee and her chin in her fist, eyes on him— _listening_ for all she was worth, as if, perhaps, she had been just as lonely without him. As if she had missed him even a quarter as much.

As if she _cared_.

 _Danger_ , that quiet, dark part of Percy whispered as he told Vex tales from a life he’d long since buried. _Danger, danger, danger._


	9. Percy

The night was young, laughter ringing through the keep. He’d retreated as soon as the merrymaking began, all but hiding in his workshop. Most times, he was content—happy—to play along with whatever nonsense his friends got up to, but tonight…

Tonight, his thoughts shaded dark. _Grim._ It was better for everyone involved if he kept to himself.

Percy did his best to ignore the taste of smoke and ash in the back of his throat and focused on his latest arrow, second lens down to magnify the tiny working pieces. His hands were always steady, but there was something about tinkering that brought him to a perfectly zen place—as if he were stepping out of time, out of body, out of all the dark thoughts chasing him, and if he just focused enough, maybe he’d be able to escape the feeling that—

 _Liiiiiiiiick_.

Percy froze, startled into perfect stillness. Then he slowly closed his eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, rhetorically. Well, mostly rhetorically.

“ _Raawrrgle_.” Trinket nuzzled at the big, wet stripe up his cheek (and into his _hair_ ) huffing hot puffs of air. They made the lapels of his coat flutter, but his hands remained absolutely _frozen_ about his delicate work.

His delicate, dangerous work.

“Trinket,” Percy began. He carefully (carefully carefully, oh gods so carefully) set the black powder aside and laid the arrow on its delicate stand before turning his glower on the bear. “I don’t know what you are hoping to get from this, but—”

His words ended in a thick, wet _slurp_ as Trinket licked him in a swath from chin to mouth to the crown of his head.

“Gragh, gah, _gah!_ ” Percy sputtered, twisting and turning to get away. Trinket just pressed closer with a whuffing breath, and Percy barely had time to realize what was happening before the chair was tipping and he was _sprawling_ across the stone floor—graceless and suddenly laughing despite his dark mood, even as he tried to shove the big, furry head off of him. “What, what are you—Trinket! Trinket, stop it this insta—”

Percy broke off at the next swipe of Trinket’s tongue—this time across his neck and ear. The bear’s breath smelled like meat and soured fish, and he felt as if he’d been dropped into a sauna, sweat beading where the heavy fur was pressed, but still…there was something so ridiculously _sweet_ about Trinket’s sudden affection, something that he hadn’t realized he’d been desperately needing, that Percy couldn’t help but wrap an arm around his neck and hug back. “Yes, yes, I’m fond of you too,” he said, butting his forehead against the furry one. “Now _get off_ before you crush me to death; what in blazes has Vex been feeding you?”

“Oh, this and that,” a cheerful voice called. Percy grabbed a fistful of fur and pulled Trinket’s head aside enough to look over one brawny shoulder. Vex was standing over them both, leaning forward so her dark braid swung down. Her grin spread wide across her uncommonly pretty face. “A trout here; a haunch there. A gunslinging scientist when he’s been _very_ good.”

He snorted, reaching up. “Which one of us? Don’t answer that,” he said. Vex caught his hand in hers—fingers calloused; he never could seem to control a shiver when he felt them against his skin—and helped yank him out from beneath the great bear. Her eyes danced as she studied him, and he could only imagine how he looked: rumpled, flushed, still all but giggling like a schoolboy. Completely undignified.

Oh well. Dignity wasn’t as comfortable as the loose cock of her hip and the steady gleam of her grin anyway.

“Did you sic your bear on me for a purpose?” he asked once he was more or less composed.

“I would never _dream_ of doing such a thing,” Vex protested. She laughed when he just scoffed and adjusted his glasses. “Grog, Scanlan and I were going for a pint. Care to crawl out of your cave and join us?”

“There’s nothing I would love more,” Percy said dryly, surprising himself when he realized that was actually true, “but if _someone_ wants more exploding arrows, drinks will have to wait a few hours. They don’t make themselves, you realize.”

Her eyes had narrowed at first, but they grew wider and wider with visible delight as he finished. “ _More_ presents? _”_ Vex beamed. She launched herself forward, and for the strangest moment Percy swore she was going to _kiss_ him—but she just reached up to straighten his glasses, smooth down his ruffled hair, putting him to _rights_ before grabbing his shoulders and whirling him back around. “Sit,” Vex said, giving him a gentle shove. “Invent. Give me wonderfully explodey presents. I’ll save you a seat at the tavern and make sure Grog doesn’t drink all the ale.”

“Very well,” Percy said, wry—then yelped when she gave his arse a little smack. When he glanced over his shoulder, surprised, she _winked_ at him. “What was that for?” he asked. Struggling not to blush all the more when her smile grew positively wicked. Someday, this woman would be the death of him.

“Why,” Vex said. “For _inspiration_ , of course.”

Then she whirled and darted away in a flurry of feathers and the scent of grass and warmth, Trinket in her wake—and Percy was left to try to remember why his thoughts had been so dark in the first place.


	10. Vex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the amazing Shalizeh7!
> 
> Please go to http://shalizeh7.tumblr.com/ and shower her with praise.

The haze of battle ebbed slowly as Vox Machina took control of the field. All but one of their attackers had been defeated—and _that_ one barely hung by a thread. Vex trained her arrow on the flagging orc, but she kept it loosely drawn, waiting. No sense wasting good fletching when a swing from Grog’s warhammer would bring the creature down any moment.

Percy seemed to have the same idea. He straightened from his three-quarters cover, keeping one eye on the brawl even as he began to fastidiously check his gun. The small pucker between his brows was all the answer she needed, but still Vex found herself drawn closer—right into his orbit, clicking effortlessly into place like one of his many machines.

“I’ll keep an eye on the others while you work,” she offered by way of explanation. Excuse?

Not that she should need an excuse to draw close. Not that she had any reason beyond idle curiosity and a drive to watch her friends’ backs.

Not that she was fooling herself, oh _balls_.

Percy just arched a brow, then shrugged in thanks. He crouched, battle forgotten, trusting Vex to guard him. That sent a ridiculous rush of warmth through her and she quickly glanced away—only to meet her bear’s flat stare.

Vex narrowed her eyes; Trinket grumbled. Percy, oblivious, huffed a quiet breath as his clever fingers flew over the complicated parts of his gun, clearing the jam slowly.

Trinket trundled closer just as Grog let out a happy bellow, echoed immediately—though at a much lower volume—by Pike. The rest of Vox Machina had backed away from their single remaining foe, leaving it to the two of them.

“It is just me,” Vex ventured, watching as Pike swung her mace with a trilling laugh, “or did Pike come back from sea a little blood-thirstier than usual?”

Percy barely glanced up. “She’s always been bloodthirsty,” he said, distractedly. “She’s just been better than the rest of us at hiding it.”

“The rest of _us_?” Vex teased. Across the battlefield, Pike swung again, new scar pulling tight over her eye. “Are you admitting to being a little savage yourself, darling?”

She’d meant it as a joke—a little light ribbing. Percy was the most controlled, most graceful, most self-possessed person she knew. He moved through the world like one of the elves who used to snub her—only he never turned that elitism against her like the weapon it could be. He never made her feel small and dirty and less valuable, even though she knew from a childhood of experience that he _could_. That no matter how she pretended and Vax blustered, that sort of refinement could cut her to the quick.

He never, _never_ made her feel less than she was, and that was part of why she… She…

Percy had gone still.

“Percy?” Vex asked, grateful to be pulled from her spiraling thoughts. She didn’t want to admit even to herself where they had been traipsing more and more often of late—ever since that _damned_ six-month separation that had made her grapple with all the things—people—she missed like an ache in her gut. She tried to tease back her lilting smile, ignoring Trinket’s amused rumble. “ _Are_ you admitting to being a little bit _savage_?” She was proud of how her voice lilted on the word, making it sound just as silly as it ought to be.

There was a beat of silence, stretching taut and oddly serious between them despite the obvious joke. _Heavy_ , as if she’d stumbled into a trap she hadn’t sensed, triggering something deep inside Percy’s chest with the gentlest of pressure. She could practically hear the tension-plate release, underscored by his all-at-once sharply serrated breath.

Then Percy flicked his gaze up, something dark in his eyes; something _haunted,_ there and gone again before she could so much as suck in a startled breath of her own. He looked down almost immediately, breaking her gaze. There was a fragile tension in the set of his shoulders, a tightness to his jaw. “No,” he said, low. The words didn’t sound bitter so much as resigned. “I’m a monster.”

That should have been her cue to laugh—right? He must have been joking, despite the weight to his words. Despite the…resigned acceptance, as if _he’d_ been weighed and judged and found lacking somehow, and… And that wasn’t right, that wasn’t how this exchange was supposed to go. She didn’t want him to think that—

She didn’t want—

He couldn’t possibly—

“Percy,” she said, caught off-guard and strangely breathless, as if those matter-of-fact words had gutted her. Just turned her inside out and scoured her clean and, and he couldn’t _really_ see himself that way, could he? “I…”

Trinket dropped to the grass and rolled against Percy’s side with a mournful yet comforting noise, sensing her distress. Her absolute _need_ to make him understand just how wrong he was. The urgent emotion bloomed through her with each breath, but every time she tried to find the words—damned _words_ —they failed her.

The silence stretched on, long and uniquely painful.

Finally Percy glanced up again with one of his unreadable little half-smiles, mask firmly in place. “I think our friends have won the day,” he said, tipping his head toward the group.

Vex let herself look, feeling helpless. Grog was just lifting Pike to stand her on the mountain of their fallen foe. Blood streaked her face and she was laughing, the sound like a distant rain compared to Grog’s thunderous guffaw.

“I…yes,” Vex said.

“You may want to dive in if you don’t want Tiberius to hog all the good loot,” Percy added. He absently reached back to rub at Trinket’s scruff—the bear nuzzling against him with low, worried, snuffling noises—as he sheathed his gun.

Vex slowly lowered her bow. “Is it fixed?” she asked, uncertain whether she meant the pepperbox or _him_ or—or—something. “Is it going to be okay?”

He looked up at her sharply, brows drawing together at whatever he saw in her face. “I…yes,” Percy said, beginning to rise. Vex thrust out a hand and was strangely relieved when he grasped it, letting her help tug him to his feet. “It will be sufficient.”

“Good,” she said, not wanting to let go. That was weird, right? Not wanting to let him go? It _felt_ weird, like a buzzing inside her skull. “We’ll need it. We always need it.”

He took a step even closer, hand still clasped in hers—caught between their bodies as he looked straight into her eyes. This close, she could see the flecks of color even behind the protective sheen of his glasses. She could feel his breath against her cheeks, warm and vital and _so good_ it made her stomach twist in anxious shapes. “Vex,” Percy said quietly. _Seriously_ , all that incredible focus zeroed in on her. It felt just as overwhelming and wonderful as she’d imagined it might. “It’s okay.”

Her grip reflexively tightened. “I don’t want you to think,” she began before trailing off helplessly.

“I was joking,” he lied, right to her face. “Vex, it’s okay. I’m _okay_.” More lies. Fuck, how hadn’t she noticed until now how smoothly he could _lie_ about his own state of mind? All of Vox Machina grappled with their demons, but something about the way Percy had said those words—

 _I’m a monster_.

—was so matter-of-fact, so _resigned,_ as if he’d already given up on himself. As if he’d accepted some dark truth and was no longer capable of realizing just how bloody _wrong_ he was.

“You’ll tell me if you’re not?” Vex asked, trying not to let everything she was thinking, feeling, show. “Because…because we _need you_ , Percy, and if you need _us_ for any reason…”

He squeezed her hand again as he pulled away. “You’re in a maudlin mood today,” Percy teased, so natural she could have almost believed it. Gods. “Come on—I was serious about that loot.”

“You go along, darling,” Vex said, shooing Percy off. “Trinket and I are going to check the perimeter. I don’t trust that they were alone.”

“Good thinking,” Percy said. She refused to let herself light up at the compliment. “I’ll be sure to save you your share.”

She smiled, watching him go—but the smile fell away the moment his back was to her.

Vex slung her bow over her shoulder and slipped around a copse of trees, Trinket moving at her side. The forest had gone quiet now that the nest of orcs were dead, light dappling the soft carpet of leaves. She didn’t truly think there might be others nearby—that had been a fiction to buy her a little time alone—but she kept a wary ear open anyway, just in case.

Mostly, she just walked, teasing at the edges of her uncertain emotions, replaying the set of his shoulders, the tone of his voice, the carefully hidden look in his eyes over and over again. Pouring over the details as if they were one of Percy’s beloved books.

She had become so good at understanding him (had devoted time and energy to honing her skill), but when it came down to it, what did she _really_ know of Percy? He came from wealth, certainly. Nobility, all but guaranteed. Only the best of actors could recapture that casual disinterest in things like money, or where a next meal might be coming from. He wasn’t arrogant (well, not often, and not without merit) and he only pretended airs when the group needed him to pave the way for them, but even still, even in his quietest moments, even when he thought no one was watching him, Percy carried about him an air of privilege and wealth and power.

So she knew he was noble. She knew he once had a mother and father who loved him, based on the very rare stories he told, each of which she hoarded like gems. He had a sister named Cassandra and a brother named Julius and likely at least three or four more. He’d been a lonely child who entertained himself with books and baked to keep out of trouble and…

And something terrible had happened to set him on this path. Something terrible had sunk its claws into him and made him think the unthinkable: that he was without worth. That he was a _monster_.

Vex let out a serrated breath, digging her fingers in Trinket’s fur. She knew better than most how that first felt, so she knew how to contradict it—to make Percy realize just how worthy he truly was. But the second… The second was beyond her scope of experience, and she had a sense that its poison went far, far deeper than she’d managed to glimpse in that one unguarded moment.

The second may take months, years, of careful dismantling until Percy was able to see past whatever lies he had swallowed and realize just how…

How…

“How bloody _wonderful_ he is, all right?” she snarled, kicking at a fallen branch, wishing she could reach inside herself and snatch at this hot, tight feeling filling her chest. Trinket gave a low _mrr_ and she sighed, looking down with a crooked smile. “I know,” she admitted. “At least, I think I know how I feel, but I’m not ready to face it yet.”

“Mrrraawgle?”

“There’s plenty of time to work through bloody _feelings_ later,” she said with a roll of her eyes. Funny how therapeutic talking to her bear always was; perhaps she should sic Trinket on Percy more often. “Until then, we’ve got work to do. There’s this Lady Kima to find, rewards to be collected… It’ll all be there later when we have a few minutes to breathe. And until then, I’ll watch him and make sure he’s not thinking anything too stupid.”

Troubling tangle of emotion and worry neatly pushed aside (if not completely conquered), Vex flipped back her braid and made her way to the site of the battle. She’d keep an eye on Percy from now on and do whatever she could to make him feel… _good_ inside. And when this whole trek down to Kraghammer was through, she’d sit down and have a good, long, hard think about how she _really_ felt about the gunslinger.

“Heh,” she said, waggling her brows at Trinket. “Good, long, and hard, huh?”

Trinket just plodded along, not getting the joke.

“Wasted,” Vex sighed as she headed into the clearing. Vox Machina had made short work of the bodies, looting them and their camp for armor, gold, and baubles. “We’re clear,” she said, smiling wide at Vax as she sailed into their midst. “So, what did I miss?”

“A whole lot of poppycock,” Tiberius snorted, smoke drifting from his flared nostrils.

“An even distribution of rewards,” Percy countered. He turned, offering Vex a torn and dirty swath of fabric—an old orcish bedroll, perhaps—tied off to keep her share of the loot from spilling free. She smiled at the clank of coins…then cocked her head, puzzled. “They had so much?” she asked; the makeshift bag was _heavy_. If this was only her share, how much had there been before it was split eight ways?

“A moderate amount,” Percy said. Then, at her lifted brows, he added, “I gave you my share as well. You always seem happiest when your coffers are full.”

And Vex just _beamed_ , that complicated knot of emotion unraveling in a flush of, of—of oh bloody well, she _knew_ the name for it. She was just being foolish tying herself up trying to avoid it. “I love you, darling,” Vex said, keeping her tone light, teasing, as if it didn’t mean the world to her.

Across the clearing, Vax straightened suddenly. Percy flushed, doing a double-take—then relaxed again at whatever he read on her face.

“Yes, of course,” he said with idle indulgence, lips curving up into something very like a real smile. “I love you too.”

And whether or not he meant it the way she did—whether or not he ever would—whether or not she’d ever say it again without the tease threading through and downplaying its importance—those words with that smile felt like spring blooming through her body. Like a thousand healing hands all at once.

 _As if that_ , Vex decided as she tucked away _their_ money where she could count it later, _is a feeling a monster could inspire_. She knew in her heart the truth. All that mattered now was making sure Percy came to see it someday too.

Until then, she would watch over him, help him, maybe save him—this strange, dark, brilliant man she somehow loved.


	11. Percy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue lifted from the stream. Please note: I do not promise 100% stream-accuracy, even in scenes played out on-screen. There will be times when I will need to twist dialogue or action to fit the story. Thanks for understanding!
> 
> This chapter is for Pantheria. Thanks for requesting this moment in the stream!

He felt a thrill of fear, of fury, as he stood over the body of his fallen ( _not dead, not dead, thank the gods he’s not dead_ ) friend. The others were a flurry of movement around him, wrestling their prisoner down, checking the perimeter, swarming over Grog’s inert form—practically vibrating with their own terror.

It had all happened so fast. It could have been any one of them. It could have been—

Vex and Keyleth dropped to either side of Grog’s shoulders, moving him with utmost care. Percy watched as they called his name, thumbed back his eyelids, checked his pulse. Red hair spilled over one huge grey shoulder; the end of a dark braid brushed the other. Neither seemed to notice him standing there at Grog’s feet, shaking, shaken, _furious_ —with the strange beast, with the Duergar, with the whole damned Underdark.

With himself. Maybe most of all.

Grog could be _gone_ , and here he was fucking _grateful_ the creature hadn’t looked a few meters to Grog’s left and caught her instead. What kind of a person did that make him, that he could see the crumpled body of his friend and feel relief?

He was ashamed. He was sickened. He was, yes damn it, once again _grateful_. Thankfully, none of his friends could read his thoughts as they moved like the tide around him. “Grog, can you hear us?” Scanlan called, hovering a few feet away.

“He’s not waking up,” Keyleth said. A desperate note wended through her words. “He’s not—”

“Not yet, at least,” Vex added—then slapped Grog, hard, across the face. The sharp _snap_ of impact reverberated through the cavern, and even Vax and his struggling prisoner glanced over in surprise.

Grog didn’t stir.

“Oh,” Keyleth said as Vex slapped him again. Again. “Is that helping?”

“Not yet,” Vex repeated. She huffed a breath and sat back on her heels, shaking out her fingers.

Scanlan leaned closer. “Try something else,” he offered. Then: “Draw a dick on his face.”

Keyleth tilted her head, studying Grog’s slack expression, almost as if considering it—then gently slapped one check. She glanced at Vex as if for approval, then back at Percy. When neither said anything (Scanlan suggesting that maybe _tongues_ would be even better) she slapped him again, _hard._ Grog’s big head lolled with the blow.

“I knew it wouldn’t work,” she admitted, almost shy. “I just…” Keyleth sighed and sank back. “Damn it, Grog!”

The frustration in her voice—the look on Vex’s face—were what pulled Percy at last into action. He sheathed his gun and moved to crouch at Keyleth’s side, one hand sweeping down Grog’s broad chest, searching for irregularities in his breathing. He palpated his sides, then up to his throat, tipping Grog’s head toward the campfire to see if blood had collected at the corners of his mouth.

A crude medical examination was nothing compared to what Pike could have done for them, but at least it was _something_. Late at night, as he lay in his bedroll and replayed the events of this day over and over again in lurid detail, he could at least reassure himself that he’d done _something_.

Even if it resulted in just more _nothing_.

“Well?” Vex asked, watching him. Painfully hopeful and full of faith.

Percy glanced up, barely able to meet her gaze—that sick shame banked but still hollowing his gut—and rose without a word. He crossed to the crumpled body of the beast ( _intellect devourer_ , his ever-pedantic brain provided) and studied what was left of it with a frown.

Tiberius moved closer and cleared his throat for their attention. Dutifully, they all looked up and waited for his wisdom. "It's clear that when that brain-thing hit Grog with his zapper-thing, it rendered him unconscious. I would assume that it is a magical creature just based on the attack alone."

“ _Thank you_ , Tiberius,” Vex drawled.

“Excellent assessment, Tiberius,” Scanlan agreed, mouth twisted into a wry half-smile.

“So he got _zapped_ and now he’s unconscious.” Percy stood, flicking frozen bits of brain off the ends of his coat. There was nothing more he could learn from the body. As inelegant as the explanation had been, Tiberius was right: the intellect devourer had done its (magical) work and there was absolutely nothing he could do to help.

Vex made a frustrated noise. “I know Pike isn’t here, but does _anyone_ know _anything_ we could try?”

Keyleth slowly stood, frowning. “I think I know I spell that could help,” she began. “I’d have to check my books, and…it could take all night to learn it.”

The unconscious Grog farted as if in response.

Vex reared back, skittering away with a sputtering cough. “Another ass cloud,” she said with a half-laugh, shared with the rest of them. However, when she looked up to meet Percy’s gaze, the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Lovely.”

“We should,” Percy began, when the prisoner—barely conscious herself, limp in Vax’s tight grip—made a gurgling noise and spat out a wad of blood. As if they shared one brain, one thought, the group turned to look at her. Grog they could do nothing about until Keyleth had learned her spell, but _this._ This they could handle. This they could…

He curled his fingers into a fist.

Pale and shriveled up, bald, with sunken features and jagged yellow teeth, she looked like something out of a nightmare. A larval being burrowing up up up from the depths, eyes milky, pupiless, ever-searching.

Percy stalked closer.

“This creature is very injured,” Scanlan said, moving just a few steps behind him, stuttering over his words as if he could sense Percy’s intent. “I think we need to heal her.”

“ _Heal_ her?” Vex protested, popping to her feet.

“Heal her just enough.”

“Not so fast,” Vax added.

Vex bared her teeth. “We’ll heal her after she talks.”

“And she will,” Vax said. He tightened his grip on the Duergar, dagger pressed to her maggot-white throat. “Sister?”

Vex skirted to his side, casting Scanlan a scathing glance (he shrugged in response) before crouching before their captive. She had to clear her throat before she could speak—but then, Percy realized as the strange hacking noise continued, that _was_ her speaking. The Underdark language sounded jagged and strange coming from the beasts below, but from _Vex_ it was…

Unsettling.

Impressive, but unsettling.

The creature’s mouth curved back into a mocking grimace of a smile as it answered in the same guttural language. It gestured to the frozen brain matter shattered across the cavern floor, then toward its own head. Vax tightened his grip, a faint line of blood welling over the lip of the blade; the Duergar sputtered and went still.

Vex muttered something in Underdark, then paused and looked back, eyes meeting his. “What should I fucking ask her?”

He hated the thread of desperation so clear in her voice. He hated even more the way the creature smirked up at her, as if sensing Vex’s uncertainty. As if _mocking_ her. “How do we fix it?” Percy suggested, cold.

Vex nodded once and turned back to their prisoner. She repeated his words in Underdark, hissing and spitting out each syllable.

The creature laughed—a husking, terrible sound, like cracking bone—and responded with a mocking grin.

Vex paled.

“What?” Vax demanded as his sister faltered. Keyleth, spell book open in her arms, pressed closer. Even Tiberius was gravely silent, waiting. “What did she say?”

“She,” Vex began, and wet her lips. She looked up at Percy again, brows drawn together. There were flecks of blood spattering her cheeks, he noticed. There were shadows beneath her eyes. The Underdark was already wearing them down; if they stayed lost in its depths too long, he was sure it could grind them to dust. “She said _bury your dead weight._ ”

That trickle of blood became a slow stream as Vax pressed the blade in tighter. Tiberius huffed, smoke curling from his flared nostrils and Scanlan quietly cursed. Percy—

Percy had no words for how he felt. Angry. _Furious_. Murderous, yet…cold, as if ice had settled in his gut. He sucked in a breath and tightened his hands into fists once more, startled to realize he was holding his gun again. When had he drawn it? Gods, he couldn’t remember, and yet it felt so very right in his grip, those names catching the firelight, drawing his eye, making the icy void inside of him grow and grow as he thought of Grog, of how close the creature had been to getting Vex, of how selfish he was to be _glad_ of it all—a monster, just a monster, always running away, leaving his sister to die in the snow—

He jerked his arm up and fired a shot.

The rest of Vox Machina jolted at the noise, startled, but Percy ignored them, swooping in on the Duergar. The creature turned its sick smile on him—and _recoiled_ at whatever it saw in his eyes, gasping out a frightened breath as he jammed the heated metal of the barrel against its broken skin. Flesh hissed, sizzled, _burned_ as he stared the creature down down down, burying it under the weight of all that cold black wrath he felt like a sickness growing inside him.

Those names, carved into the barrel of his gun, seemed to glow in the dim.

“Who do you work for?” Percy snapped, and the creature cringed back, trembling, caught between its own pride and fear.

The rest of them remained silent, frozen as they watched him.

Vex was the first to shake herself free of her shock. “Who do you work for?” she echoed, first in Common, then in Underdark, twisting the words into something hideous—gaze flicking between their frightened prisoner and Percy as if she wanted to say something to him; as if another question lingered on the tip of her tongue.

As if—

As if—

As if to ask: _who are you? How have I never realized you were here inside our friend all along?_ As if to say, in a voice that echoed his own: _Monster_. _Monster. Monster._

Percy pulled back, aware of the wary eyes of Vox Machina on him…and silently sheathed his gun.


	12. Vex

There was nothing in the world quite like flying.

Vex leaned back against Trinket’s solid bulk, face tipped toward the sun. The wind whistled by, whipping her braid like a banner behind her, and she could feel the smile all the way down to her toes. It was… Gods, but it was exhilarating. The freedom of it, the wild, endless thrill.

Percy was right; they should _absolutely_ steal an airship at their very next opportunity.

Trinket rumbled, disapproval vibrating up the curve of her spine, as if he’d taken to reading her most avarice-tinged thoughts. “Hush, darling,” Vex murmured, blindly reaching back to sink her fingers into thick fur. “I’d give it _back_ , of course.” Eventually. The way she _eventually_ planned on giving Allura back her flying carpet.

(In the kind of world where _eventually_ meant _over her long-decayed body_.)

Trinket rumbled again, louder this time, and pressed a wet nose against her neck. Vex startled, eyes popping open—laughter caught in her throat as she turned to look down at her companion. “Oh,” she said, suddenly understanding. “You’re not disapproving at all. You’re _cold_.”

He whuffed and knocked against her hand affectionately.

“Well if you’re _cold_ , we should go below-deck. The wind is a little strong today.” She climbed to her feet, toes digging against the airship’s fitted wooden planks as Trinket lumbered slowly up. It really was such a shame to go below-deck, growing chill or not. From their vantage point at the tapered prow, they had a perfect view of the entire ship. She paused for just a moment to admire it, letting the moment sink in—the sky open and brilliant all around her, the wind in her hair, the thrill of adventure rising steadily in her chest.

It really was a beautiful vessel, as watertight as any ship-of-the-line she’d ever seen. The way it thrummed underfoot as if it were a great, purring beast couldn’t help but make her smile. The rest of Vox Machina had taken to air travel just as naturally. She could just see Keyleth down aft, with Vax dutifully helping her craft a series of polymorph scrolls. Pike and Grog were taking turns climbing the rigging just as fast as they could manage, and Scanlan was sprawled on the deck below, flute in hand, composing limericks in their honor. Tiberius tinkered with a bit of jewelry, huffing good-naturedly to himself, and Percy—

Vex paused, absently brushing back dark flyaways, and scanned the deck with a growing frown.

—Percy, it seemed, was off by himself again, sitting in the shadow of a crate and staring down at his new book as if it held the answers to every unspoken question he kept bound tight and grim within his chest.

She watched him for a long minute, taking in the tense hunch of his shoulders, the dark line between his brows, the sheer ferocity of his concentration. He practically vibrated with it, as if all the world rested on his ability to absorb its contents. As if they _weren’t_ caught in an upswell of victory: Lady Kima found, K’Varn defeated, horn on its way to the safety of Vasselheim. The triumphant heroes basking in a well-deserved rest after a brutally hard campaign, not…

Not _this_.

Not this darkness she’d been sensing creeping ever-closer. “Oh, Percy,” she sighed, settling her hand on Trinket’s back. He rumbled low agreement, and she stroked down his spine, tangling her fingers in warm fur. “You go on, darling,” she added, giving his flank a little swat. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

He butted his head against her thigh before trundling off, moving to the relative warmth of the cabins and leaving Percy—looking so fiercely lost, alone, _torn_ as if the fabric of his world had ruptured when she wasn’t looking—to her care.

Vex nervously swept her braid over her shoulder as she dropped down from her high vantage point to the deck below. She kept it in a stranglehold as she made her way toward him, furiously working on what she could say. She felt awkward around him now, though that was her own damned fault. If she’d just left well enough alone, then everything would be _fine_. Denial was such an easy place to be.

 _You would know, wouldn’t you_? a quiet part of her whispered, and Vex tossed her braid back with an almost-angry snap as she dropped into an easy crouch across from Percy.

He didn’t look up.

Vex rested her weight back on her heels, arms curling around her shins, chin resting on her knees. She watched him, waiting to be acknowledged. Tucked away behind a series of crates, the wind didn’t blow quite as fiercely. It was shaded, too, sun lost to shadow the way Percy—bless his fair complexion ( _lily white as a maiden’s ass_ , Vax always said)—liked it. He could have been curled up in the library back home if it weren’t for that intense _focus_. That tension coiling tighter and tighter the longer she waited for him to even bother to look at her, making the air around him heavy, like…

Like…

Like a storm. And Percy its unwitting center.

“Read anything interesting?” Vex finally asked, to cut the growing tension.

And Percy _startled_ like she’d never seen him before, jerking up with a heaving breath—eyes wide and ringed with shadows. She swore she saw his hand move for the pistol strapped to his side, and for one wild moment she almost thought he’d do it; she almost thought he’d draw on her, barrel pressed to her cheek, all that coiling tension locked in his skinny frame leading at last to _this_.

But he just sucked in a second, serrated breath, shoulders slumping as he leaned back against the crate in obvious relief. “Vex,” Percy said, voice scratchy with disuse. “I didn’t see you there.”

 _That is so unlike you_ , a scared part of her whispered, but she put on her bravest of smiles. “Well then, I’m sure my sudden appearance is the most pleasant of surprises.”

“Of course,” he said without hesitation—and that shouldn’t have made her feel as good as it did. He closed the book over his thumb, rubbing at his brow with his other hand. “What can I do for you?” he asked. Then, frown deepening slightly, “Oh. Is it time for breakfast, then?”

She refused to let her smile waver. “Darling,” Vex said gently, “it’s perhaps an hour or two at most until dinner.”

Gods, had he really been sitting here _all day_ , reading that damned book? He blinked rapidly as he no doubt mentally calculated all the lost hours she was already mourning, a whole day stolen away from him as he lay locked in whatever personal hell he was concocting while she, what? Enjoyed the breeze? Thought about how _free_ they all were?

_Something is wrong; something is wrong; something is really fucking wrong._

“Oh,” Percy said. He tipped back his head, squinting up at the sky. “I suppose that explains the crick in my neck.”

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Vex asked, tentatively encouraged by the joke. If he could tease, then perhaps things weren’t as dire as she was fearing?

He reached for a scrap of parchment and slid it in to mark his place, firmly closing the book. “No,” he said with perfect finality. “But thank you.”

“Why not?” she pressed. Vex swung around, sliding down the crate next to him. She let their hips jostle, liking the way he instinctively made room for her. “Don’t listen to Vax; I really am smarter than I look.”

“You’re smarter than all of us,” he lied dutifully, setting aside the book and giving her his full attention. It was a rare treat, and a wholly unexpected one. Vex refused to let herself flush, thinking again, _It can’t be all that bad if he can be so charming, right? Truly miserable men could never smile like that._ “I’ve long since accepted your superiority in all things.”

Vex swatted his shoulder. “Oh hush,” she said, then promptly rested her chin on her fist and fluttered her lashes the way she’d seen Vax do it a thousand times over. “But _do go on_ if you must.”

 _Baldly_ flirtatious; Trinket would cover his eyes with a paw if he were around to hear her. Yet Percy just chuckled and missed his cue, as always, looking out across the endless blue skies—light flashing like twin suns off his glasses. “We’ll be nearing Vasselheim before long,” he said.

The change in topics caught her off-guard. “We will,” she agreed.

“And this leg of our adventure will be over.”

“It will.” The words came slowly as she studied his handsome, aristocratic profile, with its firm jaw and those dark, dark shadows gathering beneath his eyes. “Percy,” Vex added, quieter. “If something has happened, you have to know that the rest of us have your back.”

 _I have your back_.

He let out a quiet breath. “Something’s always happening,” he said, as cryptic as ever. “It’s the nature of being alive, isn’t it? Things happen; they’ve happened; they will happen. We just have to be ready for when they circle back.”

“And we have to know our friends will be there for us,” she pressed.

Percy looked at her again, and oh _gods_ , the sadness in his eyes; it took everything she had not to reach for him, knowing he wasn’t ready to reach back in return. “There are some things we shouldn’t ask of our friends,” he said.

“Bullshit,” Vex said.

“There are some things they shouldn’t see.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Vex said.

He caught her hand, briefly, in his; his fingers were like ice. “Vex,” Percy said, so intent it almost frightened her, “there are some things I don’t want you to see.” He squeezed her hand, searching her eyes as if he could peel her back layer by layer, as if he could read her the way she always wished she could read _him_.

“Percy,” she said, her heart in her throat.

Then he sighed and let go, rising unsteadily to his feet. “We’re talking in all kinds of morose riddles,” he said with a too-easy laugh, all at once cut off from her again, as if he’d slipped that strange mask of his into place. “Obviously we need to get some food in us. Hand up?” he offered.

She looked up at him, helpless, tempted to slap his gentlemanly hand away. _I don’t want your fucking well-mannered lies_ , she thought without real heat. _I want to help you._ “Of course,” Vex said instead, reaching up to fit her hand in his. She let him tug her to her feet, close but not too close. Oh no; Percy was becoming quite the master at never letting any of them _too close_. “A little break will do the both of us a world of good.”

He hummed polite agreement, snagging his book and tucking it under his arm, ever-ready. _What are you preparing for_ , she wanted to ask; didn’t. Vex wasn’t sure she could stomach being rebuffed so neatly twice in one day. _What is it you don’t want me to see?_

“We really do need to steal us one of these,” Percy murmured as they walked side-by-side aft, toward the below-deck galley where dinner would soon be served. “A flying carpet is all well and good, but this comes with _artillery_.”

“You are such a wonderful nerd, Percival,” Vex said, fighting to relax enough to smile. She’d become an expert at compartmentalizing her worry for Vax all these years, after all; surely she could fret over Percy, too, without getting in the way of her everyday life? What was one more damnably difficult boy to lose sleep over? “But if you’re _very_ good, I may just help you steal it.”

“What was that?” Captain Damon asked as they passed him on the way below. He looked over, clearly harried, and cursed beneath his breath when Pike when swinging down from the highest mast with a hooting laugh.

Vex and Percy shared a grin. “Nothing, darling!” she called out to the captain, tucking away her fears as she followed Percy down—glad they could have this moment, at least, when the shadows seemed to be temporarily at bay.

(Secretly afraid they were fast reaching a crisis point where they could no longer be so neatly ignored.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those keeping track, a few days prior to this was that little moment when Percy heard the Briarwoods mentioned.
> 
> I am fairly sure the airship doesn't have a mast, but the image of Pike and Grog swinging from the rigging was too fun to pass up. Since it can also be a traditional ship as needed, I decided it has a mast for that purpose.
> 
> Next up: Trial of the Take


	13. Percy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for blood and guts and stuff.

_Fuck it_ , Percy thought, and didn’t bother to expand on that for the next few days.

Just that.

Just… _fuck it_.

If he let himself think about the Briarwoods, he knew he could easily spiral into obsession—winding darker and darker in on himself as his bones ached in phantom pain, his breath caught at the memory of cold. Gods, he knew this path too well. If anything, the frozen air was bringing it back, layer by chilly layer. If he let himself, he could all but hear Cassandra’s sharp cry echoing down from the high spires, could feel black smoke filling his lungs.

Could taste—rage. Obsession. Madness? No _._ Not yet, at any rate. Not when there was still so much work left before he was ready to go hurtling head-first into that particular suicide run.

So instead he shoved it all away, he focused on the moment, he thought…

Just…

_Fuck it_.

The mantra had him faking a smile all the way through Vasselheim and the sheer idiocy of their trumped-up charges…all the way through the farce of splitting the party and pretending to trust two complete unknowns…all the way, even, up to the very door of a white dragon’s lair, as if he didn’t have enemies enough waiting for him at home.

( _Patience, Percy,_ he told himself _._ And from somewhere deep inside, something whisper-hissed back: _But you gave me their names._ )

He made a show of being present and being engaged and _not_ unraveling slowly at the seams, thinking _fuck it fuck it fuck it_ until the very moment he was yanked from the darkest of dreams by Grog’s sudden bellow:

“ ** _PLAY TIME!_** ” as everything came crashing down around them.

Percy jerked up onto one elbow, instantly, instinctively fumbling for his glasses. He’d stripped out of his armor after second watch so he could scrub it clean and let it dry in the cold mountain air, and gods, but he was regretting that now—now as something big and bestial snarled in the darkness and heavy footsteps outraced the unsteady triple time of his heart.

_Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry._

He kicked his bedroll aside, freeing his legs, aware of dark blurs streaking through the night. Percy spared a glance toward where Vex and Trinket had bedded down even as his fingers curled around the hilt of his gun, mind ticking rapidly over plans, contingencies, odds.

Make a grab for his armor while he still could? Call out for help? Try to—

The ground shook beneath his hip and Percy _felt_ the bodies converging over him—three of them, a stagnant heat in the frigid night air, drawn to his prone, unprotected form as if they could _sense_ his weakness. His scattering thoughts snapped together into singular focus as he looked up just in time to see an ax arcing toward his head.

“Bloody—” he muttered, rolling up to his feet, taking a glancing blow across the exposed line of his collarbone. He felt— _felt!_ —the actual moment the back of his underclothes unfastened, flap tumbling down; the icy wind was like a bracing slap across his naked ass, and he couldn’t believe this was how he was going to die: bare-cheeked and flat-footed.

Even the Briarwoods would have given him at least the pretense of dignity.

There was a clang of steel and the beginnings of what sounded like song, Scanlan’s crooning ending in a sharp yelp. The orc…ogre… _thing_ that had swung at him grinned, yellowed eyes raking down his bare flank, the flash of vulnerable skin exposed by the hanging flap and and, just…

Just…

Percy dropped his gun and aimed at the creature’s foot. “Oh, just _fuck it_ ,” he spat, firing.

The gunpowder exploded, heat blaring from the muzzle. The bullet impacted with a low thud, followed by the creature’s howl. It staggered to a knee, blood streaking red-black across freshly fallen snow; before it could do more than bare its teeth, Percy kicked out, planting his socked foot on pitted leather armor and _shoving_ back. The other two orcs scattered at the motion, barely dodging out of the way as their leader landed with a resounding _crash_ ; the ground shook beneath Percy’s feet and he should have been cold, he should have been afraid, but all he felt was sudden bubbling, blinding, laughing rage as he stood over the huge body and aimed at its twisted face.

_Crack!_

The shot took half its jaw, bone and blood spattering the ground. The creature _howled_ , lashing out mindlessly. But it wasn’t near as loud as the howling in his own head—familiar as a song, bone-deep, twining about his every thought ( _you gave me their names; you gave me their names; their souls are forfeit; you gave me their_ names) as he seamlessly switched the pepperbox from one hand to the other and fired again.

_Crack!_

Spatter. The creature slumped as its face split in one last, grisly smile.

Percy gave a breathless laugh, riding the buzz of adrenaline as he spun to face one of the two flanking orcs—butt-flap snapping in the breeze, because _who the fuck cared, anyway—_ and firing in one fluid motion.

_Crack!_

The orc just managed to duck, catching the bullet in the shoulder instead of the face. Flames burst across old armor and filthy fur, smoke rising as it hissed in guttural pain. Bone. He swore he saw bone beneath blackened flesh, and that only made him laugh harder, louder, feeling unhinged.

There wasn’t time to duck the retaliatory blows. He wasn’t sure he would have bothered even if he could. Percy took the swings—one from each side, biting into flesh with nothing but homespun wool to protect him—and his laughter scattered into a shock-painted breath. He was aware of movement out of the corner of his eye, fire licking up his side and blood on his teeth as he bared them in a welcoming grimace.

_Thwap!_ The arrow zipped past his face and caught the orc high on the shoulder, _right_ where his pepperbox had left its mark. It burst into curling flames as Vex’s spell ignited, and fuck, but he could feel the heat on his face. The orc sucked in a breath and took a step back at whatever it saw in his eyes, yanking its blade from Percy’s side and lifting it, spattering the ground with fresh rain. Its smell filled his lungs—copper and ice, familiar as his own name, and he was laughing again, a dry chuckle caught in his throat as Trinket came _tearing_ past the shadow of the big tree, knocking the orc down with one powerful blow.

The creature sprawled, still aflame, shredded stomach spilling across the ground. It gave a cry, but Trinket was already dropped his full weight onto its chest, catching its screaming head between wide, snarling jaws—teeth bursting with red red red as he _ripped_ the orc’s head clean from its shoulders.

The scream ended wet and raw; Percy’s scattered laugh ended on a serrated breath; time seemed to catch on the moment, staggering to a crawl.

Then, “Good job, Trinket!” Vex called, and Percy glanced toward her helplessly, the world catching up again even as the final orc lifted its blade to strike him down.

He braced for the blow that never came. Moonlight caught on metal before any of them could so much as blink, then _distilled_ down down into a blindingly bright flash. It slammed into the orc once, twice, three times, scattering into a shower of brackish liquid as the back of its torso was blown out into streamers. Percy _stared_ , watching as his would-be attacker collapsed at his feet. That strange, queasy light collected across its twitching skin, like the thinnest sheen of ice, before slowly lifting into the air—steam, or soul, or _something_ that had him pulling back and doing a double-take across the fire.

Zahra lowered her staff and inclined her head once toward him, then Vex, before turning toward Lyra and sweeping gracefully away.

Percy lowered his gun. “I need to learn how to do that,” he said. Then louder, to Vex, “Please tell me I can learn how to do that.”

“I’m sure if you’re _very_ good, Zahra will tell you all about how to hex to your heart’s content,” Vex called back. “But for now—are you all right?” She took a step closer, half-lowering her bow. “You’re covered in blood.”

He looked down at himself—at the bear curled at his feet, gnawing on an orc’s severed head. “Most of that isn’t mine,” he decided, realizing he felt more okay than he had any right to—at least for the moment. “Thank you for the assist, by the way.” Percy took a step forward, socked feet crunching against blood-soaked snow…then paused, all too aware of a sudden breeze.

He glanced at Vex, who quickly lifted her gaze from his waist to his eyes.

“Vex,” Percy said, utterly deadpan.

“Yes, darling?”

“I appear to be in my underwear.”

The smile that broke across her face was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen—bright enough to shock him out of momentary madness, sweet enough to make him wish he wasn’t on a one-way trip someplace he’d rather die than see her follow. “Yes, well,” she drawled as the fight wound down around them, “you always were good for putting on a show.”


	14. Vex

Something was wrong with Percy.

It was mid-afternoon and Seeker Asum had just excused himself. Percy made a beeline for the door right on his heels, muttering something under his breath about having work to do. Vex watched him go with a frown between her brows, worry churning in her gut at the sight of his bleached-pale skin, his hunched shoulders.

Something…something was _terribly_ wrong with Percy. And it was up to her to find out what it was.

She began to rise, ready to excuse herself from the gathered meal, when a gentle throat cleared behind her. Vex turned, brows arching in question, as Laina stepped forward—hands clasped and head lowered as if embarrassed.

Immediately, Vex knew what this was about. Immediately, she began counting coin in her head, testing what they owed against the alarmingly empty group coffers.

“By the way,” Laina began in a halting voice. “We’ve been working here about six weeks on the pay of four. We’ve come in close to the next scheme—and you’ve had to leave often and for extended periods of time. We would also like to be paid if possible…”

“Most _definitely_ , dear,” Vex quickly assured her, tallying, tallying…wincing inside but keeping a smile across her face. _Damn_ , they should have circled back for the promised payment at Kraghammer. At least then they’d have a comfortable cushion to work with instead of an empty purse and clear trouble on the horizon. She mentally set Percy aside for just a moment, letting her smile widen as Tiberius sputtered in gentle bafflement. “Yes. We are _definitely_ going to pay you.”

Vex opened her mouth, paused, then glanced back toward Tiberius and hissed beneath her breath: “ _Does anybody remember what we are supposed to pay them?”_

Tiberius, as usual, blew through her attempts at subtlety and took the most direct route possible. “Ah, yes,” he blustered. “What is the total staff’s payment?”

Laina hesitated a moment, head cocked, tongue touching her upper lip. “Oh, well…”

Erwen shuffled up from behind her, hands clasped. “Er, well, actually,” he said, in a voice as old and slow as time, “you had previously said that it was, ah, both of our services were fifty gold each for the month, and, ah, if I recall, the other mercenaries or guardians that you hired to watch the walls of the keep were at a one hundred gold for the month’s wages. Each.”

Vex blanched. “And how many of those guards do we have?”

“You currently have five in your employ, so that is six hundred gold pieces total per month for the services of everyone keeping your—”

The other members of Vox Machina were all quietly talking amongst themselves, rising from their meal. Vex spoke above their attempts to step in. “Tell you what. I’ll front this from my personal funds this month.”

“She beat me to it,” Vax said under his breath, and Vex did her best not to glare.

“Just,” she continued for his benefit, “because we don’t have enough in the party funds to cover that.”

Scanlan leaned forward on the table, elbows planted firmly amongst the various half-empty dishes. “We don’t have _six hundred gold?_ ” he demanded.

“…we do not,” she had to admit.

“Who is our treasurer?!” His eyes were gleaming.

Vex pointed a warning finger at him. “I am, but you lot keep spending money.”

Vax lightly nudged her side, laughing. “I’ll go halvsies.”

“Halvsies?” Well, that was a relief. She could never quite explain the existential terror that rose from deep inside her whenever her own _personal_ funds dipped too low. “Excellent. Twinsies will pay halvsies.” Even so, it was painful handing over the money—and somehow just as painful watching Tiberius front another six hundred gold for the following month. They needed…they _really needed_ to go back to Kraghammer. There was no telling what would happen in the next weeks to come, and— And—

And of course that thought—rising up from the back of her mind like something lost in dark waters—reminded her: _Percy_. There was no telling what would happen in the next weeks to come because something was _very clearly_ wrong with Percy. It had been ever since before the journey to Vasselheim. Before the dragon. Before any of this.

 _Ever since_ , Vex thought, gaze drifting toward the door that would lead down to the belly of the keep where Percy had made a second home of his forge, _we first heard tale of the Briarwoods_.

But who in gods’ name were they? And what could they possibly mean to Percy?

Keyleth caught the direction of her gaze and, as always when it came to the gunslinger, immediately seemed to read and reflect Vex’s worry. “We should all go find Percy,” she said quietly, slipping around the table to join Vex. Her elbow lightly knocked against Vex’s, and Vex looked up, meeting her worried gaze. “…shouldn’t we?”

 _I don’t know_ , Vex wanted to protest. _You know him as well as I. Better, even._ But was that true anymore? Keyleth and Percy were as close as their wildly disparate world views could bring them, but over the last few months…over these weeks…over all this complicated _time_ of give and take and worry and deepening understanding—of bloody _feelings_ —Vex had come to understand him too.

And even though a part of her kept spinning off in worry that pushing him now might cause him to break, the core of her kept insisting: _Yes. Yes, Percy shouldn’t be alone with his own dark thoughts right now._

She wet her lips and nodded to Keyleth, even as Tiberius made his noisy goodbye. Together they headed toward Percy’s workshop…only to have the rest of Vox Machina trailing after them. Vex shot Vax a surprised look, brows arched—but he just shook his head. _You’re not the only one who cares_ , his eyes clearly told her.

For some reason, that made her flush. Vex nodded once, focusing forward again, stomach roiling as she took the steps that would lead down to the basement. _Fair enough_.

The basement was dimly lit by a few torches kept behind finely crafted metal sconces. To the right was the cell they’d only ever used for storage; to the left, a long hallway led to the workshop. She led the way with steady steps, each footfall naturally hidden by the sound of metal on metal. Vex only ever came down here for Percy. If she were to be honest (which, naturally, she never would), sometimes she liked to come and just sit on the bottom step, cheek pressed against the cold stone wall— _listening_ to those steady beats in the dark. There was something soothing about the rhythm of Percy’s metalwork. Like a heartbeat, leading hers to beat in steady synchronicity. It gave her a certain peace only the depths of the forest had ever given before—or maybe the whisk of her brother’s blade, or the steady drum of Trinket’s heart.

Vex shied away from the implications of all that—now wasn’t the time—and rapped her knuckles lightly on Percy’s door before pushing it open and stepping inside.

The workshop was alight, fires stoked high, but the man working steel wasn’t the usual Percy she had come to know, to…love. He was frenetic, moving with a jerky, careless speed that was entirely unlike him.

The sight was enough to root her in place for a moment. Grog had no such problem. “What’re you doing, Percy?” he demanded, shouldering his way in and making a beeline for a dully shining pile of scrap metal. The pieces clanked together as he poked them in idle curiosity. “Are you making more mousetraps?”

“I’m a bit busy,” Percy said without looking back at them. “I’m making more ammo.” Then, lies tripping off the edge of his tongue so easily even she might have missed them: “I’m working on a few projects that have been rolling about in my head for quite some time now.”

As if that was all there was to this mania. “Quite the worker,” Vex said, voice flat.

Percy paused. He was silent for what felt like a _long_ time, as if warring with himself whether to keep the fiction or admit the truth. She desperately wished she could see his face, his eyes. Something about his eyes always gave him away at moments like these, as if he’d learned to hide everything but the deepest pain. Finally he swallowed and refocused on his work. “I’ve got a lot to do,” he said.

Lies it was, then. “Yes,” she said, switching tactics. Vex wished the others—Scanlan, Grog, even Vax—hadn’t come. Percy was always so much more willing to relax his guard when it was just her or Keyleth. “So, um, darling,” Vex began, trying to find a way to ask the questions that needed asking without putting him on the defensive.

Vax had no such compunctions. “I think we need a little history lesson on these Briar—” he began, sharp.

Percy whirled at a sudden clang of metal, glowing red steel in his hand. “Grog don’t touch that!” he snapped.

“What—why not?” Grog said. He had his big mitts around some delicate contraption—all shining metal and gears. It shifted between his palms, little clockwork parts tick tick ticking. “…it moves,” he added, as if that explained everything.

“Don’t. Touch. Anything,” Vex warned, tempted to try to snatch it away—and ridiculously, secretly pleased by the distraction. This was too hard. It was _too hard_ seeing Percy in such obvious pain, and yet so obviously fighting to hide it from the rest of them. It left her off-balance, knowing she could probably trace a path through this dark emotion— _whatever_ it was—if only they were alone.

 _This was a mistake_ , Vex thought.

Keyleth set her jaw and moved forward, stepping toward the incredible heat of his forge as if she barely felt it. “Percy,” she said, somewhere between gentle and confrontational, “it’s hard not to clearly notice that you’re quite distressed, and we’re concerned…” She stopped just a few feet away, hovering close as Percy sighed and began safely setting aside the superheated metal, letting the stoked forge dim. “And you know, we kind of were talking about it—”

Keyleth straightened, flushing, and quickly waved her hands as if her own words were smoke that could be dissipated into the next breeze. “Not that we were talking about you or anything—or behind your back or anything—” Gods, but Vex wanted to throw herself into the middle of this conversation again, if only to get Keyleth to _stop._ “But, you know, we never found out why you were in that prison cell, and…”

Grog tipped his head toward Vex and whispered, too loud: “We didn’t?”

“No,” she said, much quieter, eyes still locked on Percy. His muscles were so tight it was almost painful to look at him; his eyes remained steadily on the work her was putting away with jerky movements. “We didn’t.”

Vax leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, as Scanlan began poking through a row of drawers. “We questioned it before,” Vax pointed out. “We never wanted to make you uncomfortable, but we’re about to walk into a—a party, and I feel like we need a bit of a history lesson.”

Percy wet his lips. “I know,” he said. “You’re right.”

He left it there, however, his words hanging between them as he finished setting aside his tools. The forge had dimmed, its heat cut, but Vex could still feel sweat gathering at her temples. She wanted… Oh, bloody void, she didn’t know what she wanted. To move to his other side and take his hand or some other unforgivably mawkish sentiment. To somehow let him know that she would understand, no matter what he had to confess.

Grog let out a rumbling belch. “Should we guess?” he demanded, breaking the silence and the tension.  
“Was it public nudity?”

Percy gave a soft laugh and looked over at them for the first time—catching Vex’s eye. “A bit,” he said. Instantly, she was reminded of the night during their trial, when the orcs attacked, Percy’s bare ass practically outshining the moon. She smiled back, warmed, willing to take that private joke as a good sign.

But the smile faded from his eyes far too quickly. “I’ve never had to say this out loud before,” Percy added, as if _apologizing_ for the way it caught in his throat. “I’ve never actually had this discussion with anyone.”

“It’s okay,” Scanlan piped up. “It gets better.”

Another inside joke? Possibly, from the way Percy husked another quiet laugh. It, too, didn’t last: far too quickly, his lashes dipped as if he couldn’t quite meet their eyes and he was standing still at the center of their attention—looking, somehow, so very alone. _Lost._ “The Briarwoods,” Percy confessed slowly, _slowly,_ as if each word had to be perled from his lips, “Lord and Lady Briarwood, are responsible for the death of my entire family.”

Silence.

Utter, shocked silence.

Vex fought the urge to cover her face with her hands, to shield Percy from the immediate empathy that welled up inside of her. Vax had straightened at once, and Scanlan looked away, a dark line between his brows. Only Keyleth and Grog seemed…not unmoved, but not shaken, either. Understanding without feeling that kneejerk shared agony of loss.

 _Oh,_ Vex thought, nails digging into her palms in sharp half-moons. _Oh, Percy._

Percy continued. “Whitestone was my home...many years ago. I don’t want to get into the details.” He glanced up, then back down again, focusing his attention on the floor between his feet. “I came from a big family. I came from a _proud_ family. One night they were invited in to our home and over the course of that night, they slaughtered everybody.”

 _How_ , she wanted to cry. Or maybe, _I will help you tear them apart._

“They are evil. They are corrupting. The few survivors of castle Whitestone only survived through deceit and by working for the Briarwoods, turning on their masters. Thankfully the deRolo family still has standing elsewhere and there are other branches of the family other than my father’s…” He sighed, as if realizing he was trying to deflect again; he was so good at that—almost as good as Scanlan. But he self-corrected under their horrified gazes, admitted with shockingly raw honesty: “I was lost for quite a while after that happened.”

“Percy,” Keyleth said quietly, reaching up to touch his shoulder. Vex had never more envied the other girl her comfort with pure emotion. She _wanted_ to go to Percy, to put her arms around him, but… _But…_

But of course she wouldn’t.

He shot Keyleth a quick, grateful look before continuing—faster, now, as if he wanted to get it all out and over with. “I had nothing else in my life other than my family. I was never really going to inherit anything. I wasn’t going to run anything. I was…idle. And at some point I made the decision that I was… If nothing else, I was…I _survived_ to maybe extract some vengeance, maybe set something right, maybe stop whatever it was they were doing. I don’t know.” Grog was nodding along, visibly excited at the idea. Vex… Vex couldn’t quite put into words what it was about the idea that unsettled her. She was all for vengeance, and yet something about the hollow way Percy said the words had gooseflesh racing down her arms.

Percy looked down at his feet, a dark frown growing between his brows. No one else said a word. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I… There was one of their party. Dr. Ripley. She was in charge of…something during the murder—I don’t know what. She… I chased her. I chased her down. It took a year before I discovered where she was working on some ruins—and I approached her. And I never even saw her face. Her guards captured me, beat me up. Didn’t even bother taking my things—they just threw me in that dungeon. I didn’t even…I never even got close enough to see her face.”

Scanlan cocked his head. “You know her name but you’ve never seen her before?”

Percy waved the question away, clearly frustrated at being misunderstood—at twisting his own words around when he was usually so eloquent. “I saw her when she was interrogating me. I meant _this_ time.”

“So you could recognize her?”

“Oh yes,” he said, and something in the timbre of his voice had that shiver working its way down her spine again.

Vex fought to ignore it. “How did you get away when they…with the rest of your family?” She couldn’t bring herself to say more.

Percy glanced up, meeting her eyes. Gaze locking and holding. By his side, Keyleth dropped her hand in his and squeezed gently, but it was _Vex_ he wouldn’t look away from. That had to mean something, didn’t it? “My…my sister Cassandra…my younger sister… She somehow evaded capture. I don’t know… She set me free. I don’t know what became of her. I don’t know what became of any of my siblings. Probably nothing reasonable, nothing good. I…”

“You witnessed _none_ of these deaths?” Vax demanded, as if trying to catch Percy in a lie; Vex elbowed him hard in the side.

“I saw bodies of a few of them,” Percy said slowly. He was still looking at Vex, so she ignored her brother’s soft sputters and gave him a reassuring smile, a nod. _I trust you; I believe every word, even the parts that don’t seem to fit together right. I know how that can feel._ His shoulders relaxed slightly, as if he could read her thoughts. “It’s all a bit shady—it’s all a bit of a blur.”

Scanlan hopped up onto a counter, legs swinging. “How many years ago was this?”

“Four now,” Percy began, then stopped. “Five now,” he corrected, quieter.

She didn’t want to push—history lesson or no, this wasn’t an interrogation—but there was something that kept niggling at the back of her mind. “If you know that they murdered your family,” Vex said, as gently as she could manage, “how are they still part of society?”

Percy finally looked away. “I don’t know. I… I could’ve gone home at—I could’ve gone home at any point. I, I just… I’m scared.”

_Oh, Percival._

Keyleth kept talking over Vex’s silent heartbreak. “Did they take over Whitestone? Are they still there?”

“I discovered approximately a week ago that they’re still in Whitestone,” he said.

“Will they recognize you?”

Percy’s eyes were locked on the floor again; his voice was very quiet. “I don’t know.”

Grog shifted restlessly in place, the conversation stretching the limits of his patience. No doubt he was mentally already out the door chasing down Percy’s vengeance. “And these pricks are in good standing with the Council?”

Percy sighed and turned away—pulling from Keyleth’s gentle grip. There was a weight to the slope of his shoulders, a sadness she had noticed before but never knew quite how to place. It was so familiar now that she knew what to look for; she’d _felt_ the lost, formless rage and pain of loved ones stolen long before their time. She understood so very well. “I don’t know what to do,” Percy said. “I’m preparing for anything. When I got thrown into that dungeon, I came to a realization that maybe I wasn’t, I wasn’t doing this the right way. I wasn’t…being responsible, and I prayed to whatever it is I pray to that maybe I could have a sign of what I should be doing. And then… _there you were_.” He turned with a broad gesture to all of them—and fuck, but she knew that feeling too. That sense of finding the answer to a question she hadn’t been able to ask deep in the heart of this chaotic family. “I’ve been trusting that Vox Machina will take me where I need to go. And maybe what I need to do is confront this, but I don’t know what _this_ is. And, ah…I’m terrified.”

  
Vax made a restless noise. “The remains of your family…were they killed by the sword?”

“I don’t know,” Percy said. “There was an interrogation. There was a, there was a… Dr. Ripley was, ah… She was asking questions. I assumed for all these years that that was what became of my family.”

“What was she asking questions about? What do they want? Or was it just a political coup?”

“Asking questions about the Council. About things about the Council.” Percy made a frustrated noise as he dragged his fingers through his hair. “It was a long time ago and I was not…equipped for torture. I don’t remember much.”

 _Torture._ Gods.

“Do you want them dead?” Grog demanded.

 _Yes,_ Vex thought.

“I think so,” Percy said.

She was already plotting out ways to reach them, to make them pay. _Torture_. Imagining Percy, years ago, ripped from his soft life, his books, his… His _everything_ , and… She grit her teeth, ready to follow Grog into the battlefield now, but: “Should we interrogate them first? Find out more about your family?”

“Or just skip ahead to the dead?” Grog said.

Percy hesitated a moment before reaching for his holster. He pulled free his pepperbox and held it out, tilted so it caught the light of the forge. Then, slowly, methodically, he rolled the barrels so the etching she had always thought were decorative—had never really _considered_ before—caught the light.

There were five names on the six barrels, written in flowing script that looked nothing like Percy’s neat handwriting. _Sir Kerrion Stonefell. Professor Anders. Dr. Ripley. Lord and Lady Briarwood._

Scanlan whistled, looking impressed; Keyleth shivered.

“Are they all members of the same party?” Vex managed despite the cold shiver working its way down her own spine.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“They travel with the Briarwoods?”

He wet his lips. “I don’t know. I have—”

“Wait,” Keyleth interrupted. “Who is Sir Kerrion Stonefell?”

“He was the captain of their guard.”

“And Professors Anders?” she asked. “Who was he?”

Percy hesitated, visibly blanching. “He was…my teacher. He was my tutor, and he was in collusion with them. He was the one who I believe…”

“Allowed them in?” Vex offered when his voice broke.

He cleared his throat. “Allowed them to take the castle in the night.”

Keyleth, for all her kindness, didn’t seem to notice the barrage of questions were wearing on him. She was frowning as she tried to put the pieces together, in her own head rather than taking stock of where Percy’s was. “And do you remember why they were invited to Whitestone to begin with?”

 _You don’t have to answer that_ , Vex wanted to say.

But of course he did anyway. “They were traveling. They were on the road. I… It was my brother Julius and my sister Vesper who handled matters of court. I was… I was studying. I didn’t…I didn’t _think_.”

“And how many brothers and sisters do you have?”

His voice was so low it was almost lost beneath the crack of fire in the forge. “I had six.”

“You might _have_ six,” Vex countered gently. “We don’t know what happened.”

“And you said you saw a few bodies of family. Do you remember…” Keyleth trailed off, looking up with a start, as if only now realizing what she was saying—how _harsh_ it sounded, when Percy was already so folded up inside of himself. “Did you…” She reached out again to catch his sleeve, biting her lower lip.

Percy looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks—as if the strange mania that he fueled him all through their task for the Slayer’s Take had worn him thin and raw in places. “It’s all very much a blur. It’s…” He wet his lips, visibly _ashamed._ Gods. As if there was any shame in being unable to defeat the unimaginable horrors of your past. “There are things you just forget.”

For a time, no one said a word; for a time, no one could deny the ringing truth of that.

Finally Scanlan waved away the silence. “Well,” he said. “This is certainly tragic, but looking forward, what do we know of this…meeting…event? Party? What are we doing?”

Vex leapt at the chance to make a plan. That’s what Percy needed, right? A way forward? His friends at his back as he faced down this dark specter haunting his past? “Well I think we need to do some—”

“Recon?” Scanlan offered.

“Some spying,” she agreed.

“Well, do they know Percy’s among us?”

She frowned. “That’s the thing. I don’t know if they do. And—”

“You don’t have to get involved in this,” Percy interrupted. He hadn’t holstered his gun; instead, he held it cradled unconsciously against his chest, one finger already crooked on the trigger. _Waiting._

Vex set her jaw. “Oh, we are _so_ involved in this,” she said. There was no _way_ she’d allow Percy to go off and face this alone. Even if he seemed fully himself, she wouldn’t allow it. They were a family.

“We are one,” Scanlan said, echoing her thoughts precisely.

Grog just laughed. “Yeah, we do. You said you want them dead.”

She finally— _finally_ —moved close, reached out, fingers brushing over his wrist and gently drawing his gun arm down. It made her nervous to see the way he clutched at it, knuckles bled bone-white. Entire body tight as a drawn bowstring. “We have your back, darling,” she murmured, only for him.

Vax cleared his throat behind her. “Percival, you don’t really have a choice in the matter. My sister and I know a little piece of your pain. I’m not going to get into it, but there’s nothing she and I can do. We can find reparations for you—we _will_.”

Percy’s eyes were locked with hers. “Thank you,” he all but whispered.

 _Don’t thank me, darling_ , she didn’t say, thumb brushing once, quickly, over his knuckles. _Just take whatever I am able to give._

“But Percy,” Keyleth said slowly, as if each word had to be pulled from her, “is this really what you _want_?”

He didn’t look away, so Vex was able to see the way his eyes clouded, darkened, then went all too clear again—a wealth of strange, unsettling emotion drifting like clouds across his vision, there and gone again in an instant. His voice was still low, but _cold_ now, sending another shiver wending its way down her spine.

“There’s only one way to find out,” he said—and pulled away from the comfort of her grasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the incredible Shalizeh7. Check out her Tumblr for more incredible pieces!
> 
> Sorry about the long delay--it turns out moving into the stream is harder than I expected.


	15. Percy

The night was cold, but his body burned hot, rage keeping his aim steady even as everything went to hell around him. He could taste blood on his tongue, but even more—even better—he could scent it on the breeze. Sylas Briarwood was looking _rough_ ; only a few more shots, only a few more seconds, and this nightmare would be over.

“Sylas!” Percy called, leveling his gun. They were caught in Keyleth’s storm, sleet driving the ends of his coat about his skinny frame, but he’d never felt more still. His finger tightened on the trigger and he could feel that…something…inside of him taking shape. _Yes, yes, do it, finish this._

_At last at last at last._

Delilah dropped a hand to her husband’s shoulder before Percy could fire his shot. “My dear,” she said, looking past him to meet Percy’s eyes; for a moment, he had a startling sense of being thrown outside himself, of being in two places at once. Of…something fracturing. “I fear it’s time to take our leave.”

_No_ , he thought, willing time to slow. Her eyes narrowed on him, a spark of…something…there, pulling a response from deep inside the tangled mess of his mind. Percy lurched forward as if he could physically stop them, willing himself to _fire, fire damn it_ even as the last rational part of him realized it was already too late _._

In a blink of light, the Briarwoods were gone.

The storm raged on.

_No_ , Percy thought, slowly lowering his gun. He stared, fixated, on the icy ground where they had stood. He felt… He didn’t know how he felt, but something inside him was howling its rage. _No, no, no_.

“Vex!” Scanlan stood not six feet away, but he sounded like he was shouting from the bottom of a well. Or maybe Percy was the one who had fallen—trapped in an oubliette, lost, alone, angry—so very bloody angry. “Does your hunter’s mark tell you where they went? Where did they—”

Vex glanced up from her barely conscious twin, bone-white. “They fucking disappeared?” she demanded, looking around the battlefield once, desperately, as if this were one of Scanlan’s jokes.

_If it is, I’m not laughing_ , Percy thought—but then, he almost _did_ laugh. He grappled down the impulse, locked it away tight, suddenly certain that if he let up at all, he would laugh and laugh and laugh and not be able to _stop_. Something was breaking up inside of him, something was drifting free, and the Briarwoods had been _right there_. They had been _right there_ , and they had escaped. They had the blood of his family on their hands (on his hands) and he’d let them escape.

_My dear_ , Delilah said, eyes on him, _I fear it’s time to take our leave._

Had he stepped forward as if in response? Gods, but he needed to get control of himself; this wasn’t the time or place to go flying apart.

Scanlan was still talking, even as Vex concentrated. “…they go, where’d they go?” he demanded, hopping in place.

She held up a hand, scowling, before her eyes suddenly popped open. She was on her feet in an instant, hauling Vax up with her. “They’re back there, close,” she said, gesturing; Percy’s heart lurched in response. “Do we want to keep fighting them, or…” Her gaze cut to her brother, staggering against her.

“YES WE DO!” Grog snapped, still lost in a rage. Blood dripped from his ax and his eyes were pinpricks of flame.

Vax squeezed his sister’s arm. “He’s run ragged; we’ve got to—” He took a breath. “We’ve got to get him now or—”

“Percy,” Scanlan said, as intuitive as ever. All at once, all as one, Vox Machina turned to look at him. At _him_ , standing there with his gun useless in his hand, trembling on the edge of a cliff he’d been walking what felt like his entire life.

_So close_ , that hidden, hissing part of him whispered. That inner voice he was finding harder and harder to deny. _You were so close_.

“Percy,” Vex said quietly.

Vax shook his head. “Lead the way Percival,” he said.

“I,” Percy began, but the words caught in his throat. He lifted his gun instead, pressed it against his racing heart. He knew it was his imagination, knew it was just that dark fancy running away with him again, but he swore he could feel the ice-cold steel through layers of cloth. Swore he could feel the indention of _those names_ on the barrel glowing like coals.

Vex reached out—letting go of her brother long enough to reach him—and gently touched his wrist. “It’s that way, darling,” she said, voice low. And, unspoken: _We’ll follow your lead_.

Heart constricting, body numb, Percy pulled away from Vex’s gentle grip—and turned to give chase. He was aware of the rest of them following, but all he could hear was the rush of his blood, the sharp burst of his breath, and…a carriage racing across cobblestones.

“Hyah!” a young voice called, carrying through the night. “Hyah! Hyah!”

Percy gave a desperate burst of speed, flying about the corner of the keep as fast as if he had been hasted. He spotted the Briarwood’s carriage some distance away, clattering over the uneven path toward the main gates, their crest gleaming in the dark—taunting him.

“No,” he said, stumbling. He lifted his gun, feeling that cold rage burst beneath his skin again, howling inside the fragile cage of his body. No. _No. You won’t escape me; your soul is forfeit_.

Percy sucked in a breath and _focused_ , narrowing down down down the barrel of his gun toward the madly spinning wheels. He waited a moment, sensing the rhythm of the spokes, letting it sink into him deeper and deeper as he tightened his finger on the trigger and—

_CRACK!_

“CLOSE THE GATES!” Grog bellowed behind him just as the wheel splintered at the bullet’s impact, a spray of shrapnel scattering across the cobbles. Guards lurched to obey, and the young boy manning the carriage cried out, snapping his reins again and again.

“I’ve got this,” Keyleth said, pushing her way forward. She staggered once, nearly stumbling, cracking her staff to the ground in a flurry of sudden snowflakes. Her breath fogged before her face as she breathed out the spell—and all at once, sleet battered the sides of the Briarwood’s carriage, ice blooming beneath the wheels in a glistening sheet.

Percy watched, breathless, as the three remaining wheels fought to gain purchase. The carriage skid, swayed, swerving back and forth as the frightened boy practically screamed, “Hyah! Hyah, hyah!” and snapped the reins hard. The matched horses lurched forward, hurtling towards the closing gates as the carriage shook behind them—

—and suddenly careened off-course and tipped, carried by the ice into a deafening _crash_. It skid, horses screaming, men shouting, sleet still beating at the splintering wood. It all happened so fast, it was almost impossible to take in; Percy could only stand there and stare as the door popped open and the Briarwoods climbed out, as calm and collected as if this had somehow been part of their plan all along.

Delilah met his eyes again across the square, unerringly, red lips pulling into a smile. He could hear her so clearly, despite the distance. “Well. At the very least,” she said, unruffled, clear, “I think you should visit us sometime, Percy.”

He trained his gun on her—right between her brows—but she just smiled all the wider, as if somehow knowing he wouldn’t pull the trigger. As if she could taste the conflicted emotion roiling in his gut; as if she loved the way it pulled him this way and that, threatening to tear him to pieces.

“You’re always welcome back home. It’d be nice for you to visit your family once and awhile.”

Percy sucked in a breath, shaken—shaking. He slowly lowered his gun, staring at her in wordless horror. There was a soft curse behind him, and rustling. Percy was only half-aware of Vex pushing next to him and drawing back her arrow; he thought, as she let it fly, he heard her murmur, “ _Evil bitch_.”

The arrow hit the carriage door, exploding on impact. Fire bloomed, engulfing the two figures, and for a moment, he felt a fleeting promise of peace. They were dead; they had to be dead. They had to be _dead_ , and he hadn’t done it. Vex had taken that burden from him, and oh, oh gods, he thought he might collapse beneath the lifted weight. They were _dead_ and he hadn’t killed them, and it was all somehow going to be okay.

But then the smoke began to clear. Then Sylas and Delilah Briarwood became visible at the heart of the firestorm. Then Percy felt that strange…something…inside of him snap its leash, rage subsuming fear—consuming everything.

“Shh,” Delilah said to her husband, gaze still locked on Percy. “It’s all right.” Then, one more time, they blinked away into nothing.

And Percy was left alone with his rage.

He stood there for a moment, aware of Vox Machina talking over each other around him, trying to drum up theories and plans. Vex was at his elbow again, but he was too focused to hear her—zeroed in on the blazing carriage and the slowly moving form as the Briarwood’s servant dragged his body across the cobblestones. Ignoring his friends’ questions, Percy strode to the carriage. Each step was like a second heartbeat; it echoed through his mind, rushed through his blood. He tasted smoke at the back of his throat as he kicked a flaming piece of debris aside and angled his gun down on the Briarwood’s boy.

The boy twisted around, blood pouring from a cut on his forehead, torso a map of burns. His breath came in frantic pants. “Please,” he said, reading something terrible in Percy’s eyes. “Please, spare my life. Please. I’m just…” He broke off, breathing hard, visibly terrified. Of Percy? _Good_. “What do you want from me?”

Percy stood in long silence, that cold, strange part of him thrilling at the boy’s fear. “What do you know?” he finally asked.

The boy swallowed hard. “About…about what?”

Percy cocked his gun and shot the boy’s hand, never flinching, never wavering; not hesitating for a moment.

Behind him, Vex gasped.

The boy cried out, jerking his hand back too late; blood poured down his front from the mangled stump as he curled around the wound, cringing and _crying_. His words came out thick with fear. “ _I’m sorry_ , I don’t…”

Percy stared him down. “You’re from Whitestone, yes?” he asked, feeling cold. So cold.

The boy shivered, as if fighting against that chill. “You don’t know what it’s like,” he said. Understanding. “I’d no choice.”

“Well you do now,” Percy said, moving the gun to the boy’s left hand.

“Please!” he said, eyes gone wide. He tried to twitch away, then froze when Percy tightened his finger on the trigger, one brow arched. “Please, please don’t, please. _Please_.”

The others were gathering close, disapproving. They may as well have been from another world, another lifetime. “Frederick de Rolo,” Percy said, raising his voice.

The boy trembled. “Yes?”

“Where is he?”

“He’s gone,” the boy said. “He’s gone, sir, I’m sorry.”

“Lady Johanna.”

“They’re all gone. Sir, they all—”

He kept going, relentless, impervious to the boy’s tears. _Driven._ “Julius de Rolo.”

“I don’t _know_.”

“Vesper de Rolo.”

“I don’t—”

“Whitney de Rolo,” Percy snapped. “Ludwig de Rolo. Oliver de Rolo.”

“Your family’s _gone_ , sir.” Tears gleamed in the faint light of the stars, dripping down the boy’s cheeks. Blood pooled around his pain-racked body. “They were taken. They were killed. …I’m sorry.”

He swallowed back the denial hovering at the tip of his tongue. Delilah had said… But then, Delilah would want him rushing blindly into this. She’d be so very eager to have a trap waiting for him, trusting his need not to be the last of his name. “You will tell us everything you’ve seen,” Percy said instead.

“I… I…” he whispered, then swallowed hard—afraid. Afraid of the Briarwoods, afraid of Percy, afraid of these monsters in the dark.

“They’ll find me, sir,” he finally managed. Broken beneath Percy’s feet. “They’ll kill me.”

“No,” Percy said, staring the boy down and feeling…strangely…nothing. No sympathy, no regret, no fear of his own; just cold, and dark, and grim. _It’s almost over_ , he thought. _These names will be crossed from my list, or I will see the world burn with me._ “They won’t. Because _I_ will kill you first.”

The boy cringed back, fueled by terror, reading the truth in his eyes. Understanding exactly who—what—he was dealing with.

“Now,” Percy said, aiming the gun between the young boy’s brows, disconnected from his own body and cold, cold, so very bloody cold inside. “Tell me what you have seen.”


	16. Percy

He’d been standing in the doorway, just out of sight, for…gods, how long now? It was funny the way time kept slipping past as he wove in and out of full awareness—focusing on his friends’ conversation for a few minutes before his thoughts caught on something else, narrowing down down down to a pinprick of concentration. If he was in full possession of his faculties, he’d be frightened by the undertow that had become his awareness.

This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t right.

But, it seemed, this was his new reality. His post-Briarwoods reality. And he needed to make the most of it, even as it felt like a small part of him was constantly screaming.

Percy shook his head as if he could knock his thoughts free, forcing himself to concentrate on what was being said. This was _important_. Wasn’t it?

Grog’s voice rose above the rest. “Why don’t we let Seeker Asum finish?”

“Seeker Asum,” Scanlan added in the brief silence that followed, “in your opinion, is it safer to try and heal him, or try to clear our name through traditional legal means?”

Percy frowned. Heal him? Heal whom?

Oh. Oh, right, Sovereign Uriel. Of course.

“Honestly,” Asum said, “I have no idea. I think this plan—if successful—is quite…inspired. However, failure would probably end in the immediate incarceration and/or death of both individuals involved. But if you were to succeed, that would be the most direct route between two points.

“So, are we in agreement that we have to clear Uriel’s mind first?” said Keyleth, sounding equal parts uncertain and determined. He wondered how long she had been fighting what had to feel like a losing battle. Vox Machina really was the worst at planning.

_So get in there and help them_ , a small part of him whispered, but it was easily ignored. What help was he to anyone right now?

Scanlan kept going. “No, no, the only option is to clear our names and not worry about clearing his mind,” he insisted.

“No,” Vex said, and it was strange the way her voice briefly jolted Percy out of his own thoughts, as if he were conditioned to listen to her. She was the wisest of all of them, most days—the most savvy. The most…something. Or, gods, maybe he just liked the sound of her voice. For once in his life, he wasn’t in the mood to analyze it to death; not when his head felt stuffed full of guilt and shadows. “If he’s got his mind controlled, it doesn’t matter if we try to clear our names—he’s going to find us guilty.”

“But during our trial,” Scanlan countered, “we’ll have a direct line a sight to him. We might be able to…”

“Cure him?”

Keyleth let out a heavy breath. “I need to _touch_ him.”

Vax interrupted this time. “Does he still trust Allura?”

There was a brief moment of hesitation before Asum replied, “As far as I know, yes.”

“You know,” Grog said, sounding bored, “if we kill the Briarwoods, is this even a point?”

The words shot through Percy like an electric jolt—he felt his heart skip a beat in response, then take off racing in his chest. _If we kill the Briarwoods; if we kill the Briarwood._ The thought echoed in his head, drowning out his friends’ voices, consciousness, everything, _everything_ else.

_If we kill the Briarwoods_.

Percy was dimly aware of the argument resuming, of words like _Allura_ and _Uriel_ and _trial_ being bandied back and forth again. But his thoughts were spinning off like startled birds taking flight and he couldn’t think— _fuck_ , but he hated that he couldn’t think. His gun and his brain were the only things he had to rely on; he needed to push past this malaise of self-doubt and self-hatred and self-flagellation and whatever else and force himself to _focus_.

Naturally, it was mention of his long-lost home that helped reorient himself in the moment.

“I wish to go past the eastern curtain set up by Whitestone and to Wildmount,” Asum was saying. “I have spent the better part of the last day since the cleansing seeking all records of the Briarwoods and their doings. There is a period of about eight years where in which there is no public record of their goings on. And it appears that most records that deal with their involvement in Wildmount and whatever homestead gave them their title Lord and Lady Briarwood has all but been erased. So I intend to go to the source, Wildmount itself, and research. This will take me some time, of course.”

Tiberius gave a soft grunt. “When do you plan on leaving?”

“The sooner the better. I was thinking tomorrow.”

There was a soft murmur, a shuffle, and the sound of footsteps. Percy slowly straightened, drawing himself up as Keyleth came around the corner, her expression set in stubborn lines. She stumbled to a stop at the sight of him, blinking rapidly before shaking away the brief surprise. “Hey!” she said. “I was looking for you.”

He tilted his head in acknowledgement; she just narrowed her eyes. “You want to come and actually join the conversation for once instead of, you know, standing outside the door and just listening,” Keyleth continued, crossing her arms. “Because I really feel like this is going to be your time to give input and maybe really help?”

_You don’t want my help_. But that sounded as if he blamed her for how useless he’d become, how wrong he’d been, and Percy hadn’t sunk far enough that he was willing to blame others for his own shortcomings. _The way I feel right now, I’ll do nothing but bring the rest of you down._ Oh, but that sounded far too sorry for himself, like he was asking for their help and attention.

He wasn’t. He didn’t want to cause a fuss. He didn’t want anyone to _know_ everything that was echoing about in his head, creeping down his spine in flashes of nightmare memory.

There was nothing honest he could say that wouldn’t reveal just how hard he was still reeling from the sight of Lord and Lady Briarwood—that wouldn’t let everyone see just how deep she’d sunk her hooks into him from just that one simple taunt: _You’re always welcome back home. It’d be nice for you to visit your family once and awhile._

No. He couldn’t very well admit that.

So instead Percy reached deep inside for that lordly, imperious tone he knew Keyleth hated and said, “I don’t feel like doing that.” He paused to let those words sink in before tilting his head with a deliberately condescending smile. “But lead on.”

Keyleth hesitated, eyes narrowing. “…okay,” she said slowly before turning and leading the way back into the kitchen.

Grog was talking—something about the boy Percy had shot in cold blood—and Vex looked up as they entered. She scooted over, making room for Percy at her side, but he deliberately skirted around the table and took the far end from her, not wanting to be anywhere near the comfort she offered.

“Well, that depends,” Asum replied, missing the undercurrent rippling through Vox Machina at Percy’s presence. Or maybe just not caring enough to acknowledge it? Percy could respect that. “If you have strong defenses and the enemy has no means of entering, then he’ll be safer here. The palace itself is a very well-protected area; however, there currently is an open invitation into the palace, and if the essence of our enemy is what I think it is, then they can enter whenever they like.”

Grog huffed a breath. “Never mind.”

“I think we’re really choosing between two paths here,” Vax pointed out. “Either we stay in town and take a gamble, or we’re runaways.”

“Runaways?” Scanlan said. “No, we’d be going to the Briarwoods to—”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Vax said. “The minute we leave, we are outlaws. They’ve told us not to go anywhere.”

Tiberius gave a huff of breath, smoke twining from his nostrils. “We can leave—we just cannot flee. We can travel as we see fit. We just must let them know where we’re going.”

“Yes, but we can’t tell them we’re—”

“We’re going to kill the Briarwoods,” Vex finished for her brother, and hearing her say it… A shiver worked its way down Percy’s spine.

Vox Machina continued bickering, but he was lost again. Or…no, not quite lost, but folded in on himself, caught on Vex’s words. _We’re going to kill the Briarwoods_. She hadn’t meant it as a serious suggestion—she’d just been filling in the hypothetical—but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he…

Damn it. He couldn’t think clearly.

Did he want this? He’d wanted them dead more than he’d wanted anything in his life in that moment he was facing them—gun lifted, heart racing, thoughts trapped in a tumble of darkness. But now they were gone again, and the boy he’d shot had watched him with terror in his eyes, as if he were as much a monster as any Briarwood, and he _couldn’t be sure_ whether this was a path he was ready to walk. He’d been waiting for it so long; was now really the time to stop waiting and to see this through to the bitter, bloody end?

Scanlan broke into the group’s bickering and his own muddled thoughts with: “Percival, what do you think we should do? Go seek revenge for your family and get some blood on our hands—Briarwood blood—or do the sneaky thing and try to…” He gestured toward Keyleth and Tiberius.

“Please, darling,” Vex added in a low voice. She leaned against the table and met his eyes, and he’d be damned if he had the strength to look away. “We need your input.”

“You know them better than anyone,” Keyleth added.

Gods, what a lie that was. “I really don’t,” he said, his voice suspiciously rough. He looked down, away, determined not to see the pity on Vex’s face. “I really… I think we’re here because I wasn’t prepared.”

Vax shook his head. “I don’t think we’re here in this city to become lords and ladies serving Uriel, as good a man he is. I think Percival is our ally and this is a grievous wrong done to him, and we can kill two birds with one stone.”

“I think we are in the situation we are in because we now know how much we don’t know—how much I don’t know,” he admitted. And, forcing himself to concentrate past his racing heart and racing mind and, just, _everything,_ Percy added: “I… _I’m_ not prepared. If we face them now, I’m going to get you all killed.”

The truth of it hurt, a little, but it also felt good. Even if he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to meet Vex’s eyes again, it felt _right_ to lay himself bare like this. They had to know how confused and convoluted his mind was, how wildly he was veering off track. Even though Percy desperately wanted to keep lying, keep hiding, keep going as if nothing had changed, if they were truly thinking of storming his home and facing the Briarwoods…

Could he live with himself if they died? If he got them killed?

Vex. What if _Vex_ were killed?

Tiberius was talking—something about the draconian knights—but Percy didn’t pay him any mind. He was torn between twin impulses: face the Briarwoods once and for all so he could carve their names off the barrel of his gun; or protect himself, protect the people he cared about. Realize Delilah had been trying to bait him into a trap and admit his own shortcomings so they didn’t go tumbling head-first off this cliff he couldn’t help but sense in the dark.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “How soon will you return?” he asked Seeker Asum, interrupting.

“That depends on if I return,” he replied dryly. “Every spy I’ve sent to seek information on the Briarwoods or to Whitestone has not come back.”

Scanlan held up his hand to forestall what seemed to be the beginning of another argument. “We’ve always sought out the path of most glory,” he said, “and I think that is the Briarwoods. Going into a vampire and lich-ridden castle and killing two evil dudes amid their army of protectors is the coolest thing we could ever do.”

Grog was already nodding enthusiastically, but no one else looked entirely convinced.

“But Scanlan,” Vex said, “here’s the thing—it’s not going to be just two, I don’t think. It’s going to be an entire town of people that they’ve controlled.”

Scanlan snorted. “You think that we can get in to Sovereign Uriel without anyone detecting magic on us, instead? He’s got—” He kept going, but Percy was losing track of the words again. He frowned, watching Scanlan’s mouth move—aware of Keyleth leaning forward and chiming in, of Vax arguing, of the debate dissolving again into bickering—but he couldn’t seem to latch onto the words. There was something building in his head, like dark smoke blocking out everything until, fuck, he couldn’t focus. His gun and his brain had seen him through so much before and he couldn’t. Fucking. Focus.

“All right all right all right,” Grog bellowed, loud enough to cut even through Percy’s rising panic. “Can we just vote on something please, since Percy’s being _oh so quiet_ about all this?”

“Percy’s being very quiet about this,” Keyleth agreed with a significant look.

Grog crossed his arms over his big chest. “Are you sure you have nothing to say?”

“It’s fucking _your_ family, Percy,” Vex added. She sounded angry now, and they were all looking at him. He wished he knew what to say, wished he knew what he _felt_ , but it was all a muddle and he was trapped in the disconnect in his own head with no idea how to fight free. If he could just bloody _think._ “It’s the people who attacked your family. And you have no contribution to this?”

He shook his head as if that could clear it. “I still feel I owe everyone an apology,” he said. “I still feel terrible about dragging you all into this and putting you in danger.”

That wasn’t an answer—he knew that wasn’t an answer—but he didn’t know what else to say. He felt like he was drowning right in front of them.

“We’re choosing to do it,” Vex said. _For you_ she seemed to imply, but he couldn’t hear her. Instead, all he heard, whispered like nails across glass:

**_Vengeance…_ **

A voice. A voice curled in the back of his thoughts, more real in that moment than any of them. More real than himself.

It shook him, but it also miraculously cleared the fog filling his head—pushed away the self-hatred and pain until he was bloody able to _think_ for the first time since he saw them. Maybe from the first time he heard their names.

There was a voice where there shouldn’t be anything but his own thoughts, and yet he was so pathetically grateful for the lifeline that he took hold of it at once. “If you’re with me—” he began, then stopped. What the bloody hell was he doing?

**_Vengeance…_ **

Percy closed his eyes. _It’s not actually real,_ he told himself, but in this moment, it felt like it was all he had. He could feel his friends watching him, waiting for him to make a decision. Expecting him to be able to go on as if the sight of Delilah and Sylas Briarwood hadn’t brought him crashing to his knees. “If you’re with me,” he tried again, swallowing back the uncertainty and trusting that whatever else it meant, this _clarity_ signaled he was finally on the right path, “we can be prepared for them this time. We know enough to prepare ourselves; we can be ready for them.”

“How many days?” Tiberius asked.

“I think a week to prepare is reasonable.”

“And then we leave,” Vex said. It had to be a good sign that she agreed with this plan, right? It had to mean that this was where he should have been heading all along. It almost felt good to think that—as if he was a cog in a larger machine, fulfilling his purpose.

He wouldn’t let his friends down, and he wouldn’t let them die. Not for him, and not for this. So long as he could remain clear and focused, this didn’t have to be the end for them. “And then we leave,” he agreed. “We leave quietly. I’ve been avoiding it too long, and now I know too much.”

“Percival, I agree with you: I think this is the right choice,” Vax said.

Grog stepped in before anyone else could argue. “All in favor, say aye.”

All but Keyleth and Tiberius called out.

“All opposed, say nay.”

Neither spoke.

Asum nodded thoughtfully. “Then it is settled,” he said. “I ride for Wildmount, and Vox Machina travels to face Lord and Lady Briarwood in Whitestone. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he added, standing; everyone else stood as well, beginning to disperse to see to preparations. “I have much to do before I leave.”

Percy caught Vex before she could go. She stilled, then turned to look at him, gaze dropping to the point where his hand caught her sleeve before quickly darting up again.

He let go at once, too aware of… Well, just too _aware_ in general, now. “I just want to say,” he began, fumbling for the words. “That is…I’m so sorry. And thank you,” he added before she could stop him.  
“Thank you for doing this for me. I fear my temper before this weight is lifted from my heart. I do not wish to lose myself like that again, and I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done.”

“Percy,” she said, turning fully toward him, expression so warm and open he had to look away. She didn’t understand why he was apologizing—why he _needed_ to, over and over, until he’d dug himself out of this pit he’d made for himself. Until he deserved the friendship of someone like her. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”

“Even so,” he said, because she’d never been more wrong. “Better now than when we reach Whitestone.”

“When we get revenge for your family,” she said, impulsively taking his hand and squeezing his fingers. She smiled once—brilliant and bright—before turning to catch up with Seeker Asum.

Percy watched her go, those words echoing like a tolling bell in his head. Keeping him clear, keeping him focused, but also kindling something deep inside that he’d been trying so hard to keep from flaring to life. That _impulse_ he kept trying to apologize for; that destructive darkness deep inside him. The whole reason he’d never, ever be good enough for any of them—no matter how hard he tried to fight it, it always seemed to come back to the blood on his hands.

**_Yes_ ,** the voice whispered, now as much a part of him as that long-held guilt. **_Yes_. _At last. At last._**

And: **_Soon._**


	17. Vex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **WARNING:** Mild description of dead bodies (including a dead child).

Whitestone was eerily quiet.

Still.

 _Dead_ , a part of Vex whispered, and she shivered and pushed the thought aside. This place was already creepy enough—she didn’t need to spook herself with ghost stories and unformed fears on top of everything the Briarwoods managed.

Still, she kept close to her friends, one hand on Trinket’s shoulder, stroking through his warm fur. She kept forgetting to hold onto the illusory rope dangling from his Seeming-shaped muzzle (a donkey; an ass; _aren’t we all the asses here?_ ), gaze darting around nervously.

It was impossible to imagine this place as anything but haunted. The keep stood crouched like a snowbird on the hill above, watching the desolate little town with gleaming dark eyes. The few people she spotted kept their heads down, skirting the buildings before slipping back inside, as if afraid to draw attention to themselves. And in the center of town was that ghastly skeletal tree, its branches heavy with bodies.

 _This_ was where Percy had spent his boyhood? _This_ was the land that had given birth to his brilliant mind and restless imagination? The sky was grey; the cliffs were white; she could smell snow and death on the breeze.

Vex tangled her fingers tight in Trinket’s fur and tried not to imagine how Whitestone must have been before the Briarwoods had corrupted it. She tried even harder not to glance at Percy, even though everything inside her was screaming to reach out and…

What? Comfort? Like there was _anything_ she could do to assuage the horror of this homecoming.

“This way,” Vax murmured, leading the way across the cracked stones of the main square, skirting uncomfortably close to the tree. Vex turned her face away as they passed beneath its boughs, scanning the buildings and distant dark press of forest instead. She fought with all her strength not to notice, but she couldn’t turn off innate _awareness_ of that tree, those bodies. The whine of creaking wood as they shifted with each breeze. The rustle of fabric. The overripe stench and the feel of dead eyes boring between her shoulder blades and—

Percy sucked in a sharp breath.

Instantly, Vex was on high alert, turning even as he began to push through the knot of them, away from the tree, away from the safety of the group. Instinctively, Vex caught his elbow and Percy came to an abrupt stop—stone-still as if frozen in place, muscles _trembling_ beneath her fingertips. She couldn’t see past Scanlan’s spell, but Vex didn’t need to see Percy’s true form to read the dark emotions crashing through his tightly controlled body in waves.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly, _terribly_ wrong.

“Do you know them?” she asked quietly, squeezing his arm in a weak shadow of comfort.

He looked at her, helpless—suddenly so shockingly _young_ it stole her breath. Like the child she imagined he never truly got to be. “I,” he began, voice rusty.

“Oh gods,” Keyleth said, stopped just a few feet away, staring up at the tree. She jerked up a hand to cover her mouth, expression contorting, lashes blurring with tears. “No. No. No, no, no, no, no, _no_.”

“Wait, what?” Scanlan said, too loud. “What is that?”

“ _No_ ,” Keyleth said.

Percy met Vex’s eyes, so hurt and lost and helpless she could have sworn her heart would shatter in her chest. “It’s us,” he said quietly. “It’s meant to be us.”

She felt her stomach sink, settling deep and heavy as she squeezed his arm tighter, tighter— _too_ tight, her nails digging into his skin, but gods, she couldn’t seem to stop. Her pulse lurched, then began to race, and she felt the sudden urge to _run_. Fight or flight firing her blood, making her head spin as just a few feet away, corpses dangled from the boughs of the tree.

 _It’s meant to be us_. Gods.

“They killed people they _thought_ were us,” Scanlan was saying, a million miles away, “or they killed—”

“It’s a message,” Vax said, at the same moment Percy whispered: “It’s a game.”

“ _No_ ,” Keyleth said, lost in her own world of grief, and Vex had to look—she couldn’t bear to face the images her mind kept painting across the backs of her lids. There was no way the truth could be anywhere near as bad.

She began to turn, looking up, and for one surreal moment she thought Percy would stop her. He jerked a hand up as if to catch her chin and _keep her_ eyes locked safely with his—but then he shook himself out and turned away, breaking their fragile point of contact. His shoulders were hunched forward, defensive and protective, and it broke her heart to see the way he held these deaths close as if _he_ had dealt the killing blow.

As if it were all his fault.

As if all of this…all of this…all…

Vex blinked up at the Sun Tree, shock slowly unspooling through her body as she finally took in the details of the poor unfortunates hanging there. The Briarwood’s _message,_ their _game,_ the rules spelled out in bloody script. The body on the far left was dripped ragged with red paint, smears of it staining a lax face. Next to it was— _gods_ —a child dressed in a billowing purple shirt and shirred pantaloons, features small and blackened.

Next were the twins. Grog, the portly farmer shaved roughly and scarred. _A bear_ , fur matted with blood, tongue lolling obscenely. A woman with red-streaked hair.

Vision blurring with her own hot spill of tears, Vex took an instinctive step forward. “My gods,” she whispered.

This time Percy caught her arm. “Don’t. They’d be watching the tree,” he warned. “They wouldn’t want to miss this. Us _seeing_ this.”

“Oh shit,” Scanlan said, twisting around as if expecting Lord and Lady Briarwood to step out of the shadows stretching across the square. The corner of the nearest building? Those dark trees? They could be anywhere, _anywhere_ , watching and smiling and ready to point a single skeletal finger their way.

Vex shrank back instinctually, pressed against the (comforting) wall of Percy’s body. The Seeming spell may have changed the way he looked, but he _felt_ right, he _smelled_ right, he _was_ right, and she needed— She needed— She—

She just _needed him._

And he pulled away.

Vex swallowed hard, trembling, feeling lost as a child as she watched the bodies sway—cold where just seconds ago there had been his warmth. She understood that look in Percy’s eyes now; she understood why Vax was circling the tree over and over again, as if there might be some clue to find, some rational point he could fix himself to that would explain this atrocity. This was beyond anything they’d ever faced before. This was… _true human evil_ in a way she wasn’t sure she was prepared to understand, focused straight at them.

 _Percy was right_ , she thought, unable to turn away from the sight. Sickened. The air felt thick around her, heavy with corruption and the sickly sweet scent of rot; her thoughts spun with the dawning realization that unexpected, unbidden, they had reached some strange new crossroads. Some dividing line between the Vox Machina that came before…and whatever came after. _From this point on_ , Vex thought with rising panic, _everything will be changed_.

From this point on, _they_ would be changed. And there was no telling who they’d become after they’d passed through this crucible. This trial by fire.

“What do we do?” Keyleth asked, sounding just as lost, as frightened as the rest of them.

No one spoke. No one dared to move. Vox Machina stood frozen in silent horror beneath the shadow of the Sun Tree, watching as the Briarwood’s grisly message swung sightless and gaping in the skeletal boughs of Pelor’s blessing.

A message. A _game_. A terrible new beginning.

 _Gods, Percy_ , Vex thought, aware of him standing stiff and fragile beside her. _What happens to us now?_


	18. Vex

_At least it can’t possibly get worse_ , Vex told herself as she bedded down for the night, curled beneath her cloak and fighting against a bone-deep chill that had nothing to do with the cold. Grog and Percy had elected to take the first watch, sitting silently at either end of the abandoned tavern—gargoyles in the dark.

She squeezed her eyes shut, huddling into a tight ball, grateful for the warmth of Trinket’s fur. The very ground they walked on was cursed; the town was under the thumb of the Briarwoods; and oh yeah, there were _vampires_ freaking _everywhere_.

_Seriously_ , she thought, willing herself to fall asleep despite chattering teeth. _It can’t possibly get worse than this._

She was wrong.

What felt like minutes later, a soft hand touched her shoulder, pulling her awake. Vex blinked up at Scanlan’s face, familiar features swimming together as she rubbed at her eyes. She sat up, messy braid falling over one shoulder, and immediately shivered. Each exhalation sent white puffs of air drifting; the cracked and darkened windows were frosted with delicate webs of ice. The night was unnaturally chill, and she reluctantly rose from the warmth of Trinket’s side, glancing around at her sleeping friends as the graveyard watch began.

Oh. _Graveyard_ watch. No, that was terrible and she wasn’t going to think about it.

Across the tavern, Vax was yawning and crawling out of his pile of cloaks. They’d spent enough watches together that there was no need for words—Vex simply tipped her head toward her brother and he nodded in return, withdrawing to guard the main entrance. Vex remained where she was, drawing up her legs and resting her chin on her knees. It wasn’t long before Scanlan’s even breaths joined the others, low and soft and whistling on every third inhalation, as if he couldn’t help but sing even in sleep.

The rest of them were completely still, peaceful…

And then, a cry.

Vex lifted her head, frowning. It was so soft, it could have been nothing—the creak of the old place settling on its foundation. The wind rattling the door on its hinges. One of Keyleth’s strange off-pitch snores.

She strained to hear it—whatever it was—but the silence was absolute. _Nothing_ , Vex told herself, grabbing her braid and beginning to twist it about her fingers. She felt jittery, nervous, though she couldn’t say why. _You’re imagining things_.

Another cry, just as quiet as the one before—and just as haunting.

Vex rose up onto her knees, peering around the tangle of her friends. Across the room, Vax looked over at her, brows arched; she shook her head, holding up a single hand to keep him back. She couldn’t even say what she was hearing or where it came from, but there was…something. Some irregularity, some barely discernable dissonance that itched beneath her skin and had the hairs along her arms standing on end. Her heart was actually racing now and she felt—

She didn’t know how she felt. Confused. Anxious. Frightened. _Worried_ for him.

Wait. For _him_?

Oh.

“Percy,” Vex breathed, twisting around until she spotted him. Curled up some distance from the others, handsome face naked without its glasses, brows drawn together in a fierce frown and hands… Trembling. He was _trembling_ as he slept, mouth working silently.

She stood, ignoring Vax’s implied questions, and carefully picked her way across the floor to Percy’s huddled form. He was sweating despite the cold, a single bead tracing its way from his temple, down the slope of his cheek, toward lips that whispered the quiet nonsense of dreams. He jerked just as she reached him, that soft, hollow _cry_ hitting her right in the chest. He sounded, gods, so lost.

Was he trapped in nightmares? Or was this _place_ a living nightmare for him?

Should she wake him?

Biting her lip, Vex slowly dropped into a crouch before Percy’s huddled form. She began to reach out, hesitated, then drew back her hand again. He needed his sleep if they were going to face Stonefell, but…

He twisted suddenly, jerking back as if burned. One hand reached up to swipe fitfully at some imagined foe, fingers curled into claws—nails raking across his own skin as if he were tearing at a mask, breath coming in sudden harsh pants and and oh gods she couldn’t just _leave_ him like this.

“ _Percy_ ,” Vex whispered, so quiet even she could barely hear. She reached out on instinct to lightly grip his wrist, thumb brushing over the frantic thunder of his pulse. She could feel the tension in him, could sense that confusing, terrible darkness wending its way through this complicated man she loved, and she would do anything if it meant shielding him, even a little, from the demons that haunted his sleep.

Leaning in, still keeping gentle hold of his wrist so he couldn’t hurt himself in his sleep, Vex pressed her lips oh so, so very lightly to the soft hairs at his temple. She breathed him in once, then let it out in a slow gust. Her thumb traced circles against his pulse in time with her deliberately even breaths.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

Huddled over him, one hand braced against the floorboards just behind his head, the other holding on to him like a living lifeline—trying to soothe the only way she knew how.

Breathing in. Breathing out. Giving Percy a small part of her own inner strength.

Slowly, by degrees, Percy began to settle. His breathing evened out to match hers and the frantic thrum of his pulse stilled. The dark scowl that marred his brow cleared, and it was all Vex could do not to press a kiss there in relief. Instead, she let her forehead rest against his temple for just a moment, listening to the steady tempo of his now-dreamless sleep. Then, slowly, _reluctantly_ , she sat up and let go of him, twisting her fingers back into her braid to keep from reaching out again.

He didn’t look peaceful in sleep, but then, Vex could count on both hands the number of times she’d actually seen Percy _relax_. This stillness, this lack of pain, would have to do for now.

She began to rise again, then stopped. On impulse, Vex reached out one final time to brush back a fall of silver hair. Her thumb slid along the arch of a dark brow, and she knew she should stop—knew this wasn’t okay—but that protective instinct was still blaring inside of her, shouting that something was _wrong wrong wrong_. He needed her somehow, but she had no idea what else to _do_.

She wanted to kiss him.

She certainly knew better than to try _that_.

Vex looked up, frustrated, and met her brother’s eyes across the dark tavern. _Both_ of his brows were arched high toward his hairline, a question in his eyes that she had no intention of answering.

_Bad dream_ , she mouthed as if that excused everything. Then, before he could retort, she was standing and brushing herself off, carefully averting his gaze. If she didn’t look at him, she didn’t have to see Vax slowly forming his own opinions.

Instead, Vex made her way back to Trinket, sinking down against the soft wall of fur and trying to keep her end of the watch as the hours ticked by—but really, she kept straining for any sound of those nightmares returning. For the soft cries and the uneven breaths. For a sign that something was wrong, so she could go swooping in and do her best to make it _right_.

The late evening bled into morning and Vox Machina slowly began to stir. Vex did her best not to twist around to look at Percy as he sat up—coughing lightly into his fist.

“You feeling okay, Percy?” Keyleth’s voice was still groggy with sleep, but she sounded worried enough that Vex couldn’t help but turn to see.

Percy…Percy looked _terrible_. His skin was paler than ever, parchment-white and tight against his skull, as if he’d somehow managed to lose weight over the night. Soft lavender-violet shadows bloomed beneath his eyes, and his hand subtly trembled as he reached up to put on his glasses.

Whatever nightmares had been chasing him through sleep had managed to follow him into the dawn; Vex hadn’t managed to shield him from _anything_.

“It was cold,” Keyleth continued, crawling forward to press the back of her fingers to his forehead; Percy flinched from the touch. “Did you catch a cold?”

“No,” he said shortly. He stood, clearing his throat again—a ghost moving amongst them. “I’m fine.”

_You’re not fine_ , Vex wanted to shout, but she bit the inside of her mouth and stood, controlling the impulse to go to him, to reach for him the way Keyleth had, to—

To _help_. She just wanted to _help_. But she knew, even without asking, that Percy wasn’t in a place right now to accept any of their help. He had retreated deep into himself, where he would stay locked tight until this was either over or Vex had managed to figure out those magic words—whatever they might be—that would lure him back from the brink.

_I’ll keep an eye on him_ , she promised herself as Vox Machina began plotting the next stage of their rebellion. _I’ll make sure he doesn’t get any worse._

And, forcing herself to reach for an optimism she couldn’t feel: _It’s going to be_ fine.

It wasn’t fine.

The battlefield was utter chaos. She’d stuck by Percy’s side as much as possible, keeping a wary eye on him as they crept through the town and up through the wine cellar of one of the estates. Percy continued to look more and more drawn as the hours passed, those shadows beneath his eyes darkening, his lips growing paler—his whole countenance changing slowly, as if the cursed land were seeping away his strength as well.

But it wasn’t until he lifted his gun and fired those last fateful shots at Kerrion Stonefell—three shots in rapid succession, each finding their mark—that Vex saw the smoke coiling about his wrists.

It was delicate, graceful, twining between his fingers like a climbing vine, obscuring pale skin as it grew and grew beneath her horrified stare. Coils of smoke bloomed from the collar of his coat, spanning his throat in choking fingers before curling along the sharp line of his jaw. Percy didn’t seem to notice, focus zeroed in on each shot; with every wet cry Stonefell made, the shadow _grew_ , enveloping him further. It happened so fast, and yet Vex saw it all in horrified slow motion—a haunting she couldn’t hope to control.

Gods. What was _happening_ to him?

Those beautiful, intelligent eyes flared black; smoke poured from his parted lips; darkness coiled around the muzzle of his gun and gods, gods, _no_.

“ _Percy_ ,” she said, but he didn’t—couldn’t—hear her. He reached up with his free hand and yanked down his mask; black smoke coiled from its eye sockets, twining about the beak as he leveled his gun one final time.

_Crack!_

The impact sent the big man toppling back with a choked-off cry, blood blooming in red flowers across his chest. He sucked in a breath, staring at Percy with dawning horror. “Ripley,” Stonefell breathed, reaching out as if to stop him.

_Crack!_

Percy strode forward, wreathed in darkness, changed in some terrifying elemental way. The rest of the fight, the rest of the world, seemed to have gone still: everyone was watching with held breath as he grabbed the front of Stonefell’s collar and lifted the gun until its barrel rested against the man’s convulsively swallowing throat.

“Percy,” Vex whispered again, but there was no reaching him now. Maybe there had never been any hope of salvation. Maybe he was just too _hurt_ for someone like her to be able to heal. Gods, fuck, fuck, fuck, that thought was like an avalanche in slow motion, pulling all her long-buried insecurities down around her as she watched the man she loved come undone with helpless horror.

“This is for the de Rolos,” he said, voice so rough she barely recognized it. Barely human. “And let me say: you were the one I was least looking forward to.”

_Crack!_

Blood painted the wall behind them in a brilliant steaming hot spatter as Stonefell’s eyes went _wide—_ before he slumped, lifeless, tumbling into a graceless heap at Percy’s feet. Percy stared down at him, the sharp beak of the mask casting eerie shadows across the floorboards. He stood in a growing halo of blood, smoke still curling around him. Cold.

Alien.

Something not entirely human.

Vex sucked in a frightened breath, reaching for an arrow as the smoke bloomed into a terrifying visage—sharp-beaked and _hungry_. Percy was lost at its center, small in its terrifying shadow, gone, gone, oh gods he was _gone_.

And then the gun slipped from a lax grip, clattering to the floor, and he was _Percy_ again. The smoke dissipated in silent wreaths of black as he fell to his knees, trembling; it didn’t matter that she couldn’t see his face—Vex knew the hunch of those shoulders, the spring-coiled tightness of that body, the way those clever, clever hands shook as he reached for the smoking gun with one hand and grabbed blindly for a knife with the other.

She let the arrow settle back into its quiver as she watched Percy obsessively scratch a _name_ off the barrel of his gun, soft puffs of black smoke coiling with each spark, as if the gun itself were giving up the letters: pact sealed, vengeance claimed, purpose done.

_But what_ , Vex wondered, watching helplessly as Percy worked like a man possessed, ignoring his horrified friends ringing slowly around him, _happens when the last name’s been stricken from that list?_

She could only pray she never found out.


	19. Percy

Vax turned on him the moment they were back in the relative safety of the cellar. “Percival, spill your guts. What the fuck is going on?”

Percy hesitated before carefully unhooking the mask and setting it aside. He could feel their eyes on him— _my friends_ , he had to remind himself, _my allies_ —like cold pinpricks against his skin. His fingers actually twitched, but he swore he wasn’t reaching for his gun. He _wasn’t_. “I don’t entirely know,” he said. He might as well try to give them the truth. “Where to begin?”

He turned at the sound of footsteps, watching as Vax stalked closer. The other boy’s eyes were dark with a mix of anger and fear, and his own hand was twitching much more obviously toward one of the knives at his side. Percy had no delusions that Vax wouldn’t gut him right here, right now if he felt he had to. He’d do just about anything to protect the others.

To protect Vex.

“You didn’t look surprised when that happened,” he said, challenging.

Keyleth—practically vibrating in place—spread her hands wide. “No!” she said. Nearly shouted, really, as if she’d been swallowing back panic for hours. “No, in fact, you pulled down your mask, which you never do in battles.”

They were all fanning out to look at him, to _watch_ him. Percy shifted, uncomfortable as he was subtly surrounded. _Fight back; defend yourself; kill_. He swallowed hard. “It felt—it didn’t feel like a surprise,” he admitted. Remembering that hissing voice coiling in the back of his mind. How long had he been aware of it now? “I just— It didn’t feel good. I was hoping it would.”

Vex crossed her arms defensively, hunching around herself as if his words were blows. “You didn’t seem to mind as it was happening,” she pointed out.

“I don’t know how to explain this,” Percy said. “I just…I was hoping it would feel better.” As if the act of revenge would be like lancing a wound, letting off some of the pressure that had been building in his skull.

Keyleth shook her head. “But why the mask, Percy? Is the mask part of the smoke thing?”

He resisted the urge to rub at his eyes—to cough. To twitch away or let them see in any way how off-balance he was with all of their eyes on him. Watching him, judging him. “I think,” he said, struggling past the reflexive need to defend himself, “I wanted him to recognize me.”

“Who?”

“Kerrion.” The name left a bad taste in his mouth. “I wanted him to know I was the one who killed him.”

Keyleth let out a soft breath. “Could you feel it happening while that thing was there? Were you conscious? Do you remember what you did?” The questions came one after the other, like the relentless patter of rain.

Percy shook his head, not sure where or how to start answering; the denial was just enough to set Vax off again. “What the fuck is it?” he demanded, stepping forward again—this time his hand really did drop to the hilt of his knife, though it seemed to be more of a nervous tic than a threat. “What is going on here, Percival? What is that thing?”

There was something cold and terrible inside of him that wanted him to fight back. Percy’s own hand dropped down toward his gun, but Vex’s soft, “Percy,” had him freezing in place again.

He squeezed his hand into a tight fist, looking over to meet her eyes. She was pressed against Trinket at the far end of the cellar, his big head butting comfortingly at her belly. The unadulterated fear in her expression was what had him relaxing, shoulders losing some of their tension. The coil of blistering cold anger that had begun to respond to Vax’s shouted demanded settled, and he wet his lower lip as he regained full control of himself.

These were his friends. They deserved all the truth he could give them.

“A few years ago,” he began, a little haltingly, “I had a dream. I had a very intense dream, and in this dream, something asked me if I wanted revenge. If I wanted the means to have revenge. All I would have to do in return is offer up the souls of those I took.”

“Oh,” Vex said thinly, “that’s all.”

“Wait, _what_?” Scanlan demanded.

“It was a _dream!”_ Percy said. “It was just a dream.” A dream he remembered in vivid detail, even to this day.

Scanlan squinted up at him, visibly dubious. “And yet you’ve fashioned your entire life’s goal upon this dream,” he said.

“I woke up in the morning with an idea, and I built that idea. I thought it was prophetic, and lately I’ve…” They’d all seen what had been happening _lately_. “It was just a dream!”

“So,” Scanlan said, “the day after this dream was when you first developed your Pepperbox?”

They were all looking at him so mistrustfully—even Keyleth and Vex, who had always been his closest companions—and he wasn’t sure he could blame them. It sounded like madness even as he told them the truth. He had sunk into despair and dreamed of a chance to avenge what had been taken from him. When he woke, he had moved like a man possessed, but… But he was an inventor by nature. Dreams were dreams and ideas were _ideas_ , and how was he supposed to know he couldn’t trust his own genius? “It’s not the first time I felt inspired in my life,” he tried to explain. “It’s not the first time a thought has come to me while I was… I just. _This time_ , it was— It wasn’t real.”

Grog made a low noise that could have been confusion or just…Grog being Grog. Keyleth, however, briefly softened. “Percy,” she said, as if she truly did want to believe in him. “Can you just tell us…how long after the coup and after you, um, lost your family was this dream?”

He sighed. “Maybe a year,” Percy said. The _maybe_ had Vax stiffening, as if he were scenting out a lie, but he didn’t understand. None of them, despite all they had lost, understood exactly what he had gone through, just as he could never understand the specifics of their own particular pain. The depths he had fallen into were nothing like Vax’s pure experience of loss; they were nothing like the way Scanlan hid everything with a smile. They were all his own, and they hurt beyond measure to share, even as he forced himself to keep talking. “I was fuzzy at first. I wasn’t really _me_ anymore.” He laughed, and it sounded too loud, too sharp in the sudden quiet. “I was—I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t anything. I was hollow. And then this dream came, and I felt…” He felt _alive_ again, though still unlike the boy he used to be—the boy who’d died with his sister on that frozen mountainside. “This was something to do with myself; this was something to work towards.”

Percy very carefully did not look at Vex.

Vax just shook his head, bypassing all that. “Well, we’re clearly not talking about a dream anymore. Do you have any theories?”

“I don’t. I don’t know.” Then, with a strangled laugh: “I’ve never thought about it. It didn’t matter.”

“It matters now,” Vax pointed out.

“ _I don’t know what to do_ ,” Percy said—and, gods, if they didn’t realize just how much it cost him to say that, they didn’t know him.

Vox Machina was silent for what felt like a long, long time, taking that in. Percy just stood there, surrounded by his friends, and let them pass judgment. For once, he was laying himself bare, riddled by fear, plagued by doubt. If he hurt them out of some misplaced need to protect his secrets, he’d never forgive himself, so he let them take it all.

There was a soft scuff of a footfall, and then a hand fell on his arm. He didn’t have to turn his head to know Vex stood there next to him.

“Percy,” she said, voice pitched low. “Who is the last bullet for?”

He just sighed and tugged off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose. He still couldn’t look at her, but now…now he couldn’t look at _any_ of them. Because the most shameful thing about all of this was that, even in this, he truly _did not know_.

The silence that followed this time was horrified. Once again, it was Vex who broke it. “We don’t want to lose you, Percy,” she said, squeezing his arm almost too tight. He could hear the tremor in her voice, could feel it in her grip. In that moment, he hated himself for making her grieve at even the phantom specter of his loss.

“I’m not,” he tried to begin, but the reassurances died on his lips. Percy finally looked up—finally looked at her—meeting those stricken eyes despite how much it cost him. “Vex, I—” Gods damn it.

_Say something._ He could see the horror dawning in her expression, could see her fumbling for all the wrong assumptions. Or were they wrong? He just, he, he _didn’t know._ But he had to say something.

So he reached for the first explanation he could find that wasn’t…what they all had to be thinking. Whether it was fully true or not didn’t matter—just saying the words made them his new truth; wasn’t that how this sort of thing worked? “When I started this,” Percy said, “I talked to a man, at one point. He was the captain of one of the vessels I was on. I told him what I intended to do, and I showed him what I was building. And he said that if I really wanted revenge, if revenge was what I was after, that there would be no stopping it. And there would be casualties along the way, and I would have to give up things, and I would have to hurt people.”

So much blood. So much death. So much pain following behind him, wherever he went. “And that was the price, so that last barrel is because it’s not just five names; I know I’m going to have to keep hurting people and that this thing existing is just going to keep hurting people. It’s the knowledge that it never ends. It’s because I haven’t just killed five people. I’ve killed a lot of people on my way here. I’ve killed them with you. And it’s to remind me that this is what I’ve chosen.”

He could see the moment Vex relaxed, accepting that new truth he’d made here. Vax, however, wasn’t so easily swayed. “I don’t understand,” he protested. “We’ve killed with reason.”

“And I have tried to.” Even when he failed, he did try—that wasn’t some pretty story, was it? “And I certainly have reason for these five names. They are not good people. These are not people who should be allowed to live.”

Vax made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “None of us debate that the Briarwoods and  
their circle should be allowed to go on. We all understand what they’re capable of. We all understand that they need to be removed.” He was starting to pace, shoulders tight and body full of nervous energy. Percy stole a glance at Vex, but she was watching her brother now with a faint frown puckered between her brows. “But what we just saw goes beyond that, and you’re telling us that this is going to continue after the Briarwoods and their like are gone. What are we to look forward to, Percival? Where are we going?”

That was simple enough—he’d been obsessing over that question for so long, he didn’t even have to think about it. “I was hoping that once I’d finished serving revenge that perhaps I could serve repentance.”

“Wait,” Keyleth said. “ _Wait_. You’re speaking of these as if they’re metaphysical beings. You’re serving revenge. That sounds very literal, and from what I’ve seen, isn’t inaccurate.”

He let out an unsteady breath. How could he possibly make them understand this?

Percy looked between them, studying their faces—Keyleth’s frustration, Vax’s anger, Grog’s boredom, Scanlan’s confusion, Vex’s _worry_ , deeper than he knew what to do with. And that…that was what led him to say, “I no longer feel in control. I no longer trust myself. I wouldn’t expect you to trust me.”

He was speaking to Vex, but it was Vax who answered. “Stretching a little thin right now, Percy.”

He ignored that. “But I trust you.” _Gods help me, but I do._

Vex wet her lips, something close to tears bright in her eyes. There was anger there too, but he sensed it wasn’t directed _at_ him—it was focused deeper, at this…this thing inside of him. At the people who had driven him here. At, maybe, the whole bloody world, but not him.

That shouldn’t have been such a relief.

Grog finally broke in, bored with the silence. “Are you afraid you’re going to hurt us?” he demanded.

“No,” he said, not looking away from those bright eyes. “I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you.” _I’m not the man you want me to be._

Keyleth made a frustrated noise. “How would you disappoint us?” she said.

That had him looking at his closest friend. _She_ looked angry with him, but the hurt, tangled sort of anger he recognized. She wanted to reach her hands deep into his core and _fix_ him, and the fact that she couldn’t was making her agitated.

He tried to offer something almost like a smile, despite the tension threading through the air. “I trust that you are all here in the service of justice and maybe friendship,” Percy said— _gently_ , because Keyleth deserved nothing less. “But I’m not. I’m here for revenge. And as much as I would like to believe otherwise, I know that’s not true. And I think I need people here who are not here for revenge. I need _you._ Keyleth.” He swallowed and shook his head, willing her to get just what he was saying. “I don’t know how to stop this.”

She didn’t seem to understand, that small frown still between her brows. “Just because you started on this path for revenge doesn’t mean you can’t find other motivations along the way,” she protested—speaking, it seemed, of their entire time together and not just this desperate slog he found himself on now. Not this darkest of nights. “Do you believe you’re not doing this with your friends or for your friends? Not even a little bit; it’s only a hundred percent revenge?”

“No one does anything purely for one reason,” Percy argued, and for a moment, it felt like any one of their hundreds of late night tavern debates. He could see her responding to that thought as well, relaxing subtly: this was old ground for them, despite the stakes of the current situation being so high. Drunken philosophy was the foundation of their lasting friendship, after all. “And I could justify it, but I’d be lying. I want to hurt them. I want them to know it’s me. I want them to feel remorse for what they have done. I want them to pay, and if this thing is real, if this is really what is happening now, I hope that wherever they go, they suffer forever and beyond.”

Grog shrugged. “I think that sounds fair,” he said before Keyleth could answer.

But he wasn’t done. Once Percy found a soap box, it was frustratingly difficult for him to let go of it—even, it appeared, when his immortal soul was in question. “And I’m so grateful there is justice to be found in it, but it is not justice that I am motivated by. And I couldn’t pretend it would be. I am so grateful there is justice in this. But even if there wasn’t, I would still be here.”

_I’m a killer_. Was there any plainer way to say it? _You may have killed, but I’m the true killer._

Vex squeezed his arm again and Vax sighed. “I want to talk about a plan,” he said, eyes darting between Vex and Percy in a too-obvious way, “because our desires are in lockstep up to a point. Once we have gotten rid of the last of them, I want to know what happens then, Percival.”

_Please_ , Percy thought, one hand subtly closing over Vex’s, squeezing her fingers even as his eyes never left Vax’s. _Please understand what I’m asking of you._ “I’ve never had to think of this before. I think if we get out of this…” It was damnably difficult to say the words. “…either I’m going to need you to save me or finish me.”

“No,” Vex said immediately—fiercely. “We won’t do that.”

He squeezed her fingers again, but she pulled away, both palms lifting in a warding gesture as if she could force him to take back those words. “If it comes to it,” Percy said, hating the open wound that was her expression.

She let out a broken sound, so hurt he almost took it back. He _wished_ he could. “We can’t…we _won’t_ kill you, Percy.”

Grog, surprisingly, agreed. “Doesn’t have to come to that. This thing—it’s going to help him on his quest, get revenge and kill all the people that killed his family, right? So can we do that, and then if it gets out of control when we finish leaving a smear of red all over the place, we bop him on the head and take him to a temple. Pike’ll fix him right up.”

Vex immediately latched onto that. “Yes, that. We’ll do that.”

“I miss Pike,” Keyleth sighed, wrapping her arms around her middle.

“I miss Pike too,” Vex agreed. “But Grog’s right. I think that’s the best plan we have, actually. We’ll…try to ride this out as best we can, and if it comes to it, we’ll incapacitate you—incapacitate you _only_ , darling—and get you out of here. Someone is _sure_ to know how to fix…this. You. Everything.”

He started to shake his head—that wasn’t _enough—_ but Vex was having none of it. She reached up, catching his chin between her fingers. Her eyes, when they met his, were beautifully fierce. “Percy,” she said sharp as a blade, “we are going to make this all right. You _will_ survive this.”

Percy could hear the words she wasn’t saying: _whether I have to drag you to salvation myself._ He was grateful enough for the show of faith that he almost began to smile, leaning instinctively into her touch.

Close. They were standing so close, and yet it wasn’t near close enough.

“But I don’t like how dark it went, Percy,” she added in a low voice. “It went really dark.”

The others may as well faded into the void. All he could seem to focus on was her. “I’m sorry,” Percy murmured. “I will say it did get out of hand. And if I had known then what I know now, I would hope that you would restrain me in those moments where I seem to be going further than I should.”

“Done,” she agreed.

Percy reached up, curling his fingers around her wrist. It was so tempting to turn his face and press a kiss against her palm, but… But it wasn’t as if he deserved that, was it? He certainly would be a monster if he offered himself to her as he was: broken and angry and so very cold inside, the last flicker of his humanity held within her capable hands. “If I start to turn against you, Vex,” he said, quiet. “If you think for a moment that I am out of control. Please, please, do what is necessary. The moment that I turn on you, the moment that I even threaten you is a moment I am not in control. No matter what is happening.”

Her expression softened, and he swore he could feel his heart breaking in slow motion. Dear gods, but he could never hope to deserve the faith this woman had in him. “Don’t you worry, Percy,” Vex said, ignoring the rest of their friends as she leaned in to brush a kiss against his cheek. He could feel the warmth of her breath against his temple; in that moment, no darkness could touch him.  Not when she was near. “We’ve got you.”

Percy closed his eyes, allowing himself to soak in her faith like the selfish wretch he was. He didn’t even bother trying to protest. “Thank you,” he said, the word strangled in his throat. Just that, just everything he felt wrapped up into simple words. And, buried deep where he knew it was safe:

_Gods how I love you._


	20. Percy

He held himself as still as he could manage, aware of dark smoke creeping along the hem of his coat. It circled his boots and coiled like grasping vines—like spindly demonic fingers, and _dear gods do not think of demons now_ —about his ankles.

 _To what end,_ Percy wondered, holding the shattering pieces of himself together by sheer will alone. He had the most terrible urge to laugh—standing here at the head of the steps, spattered in blood and wreathed in _demonic smoke_ —but he knew, _he knew_ , that once he started, he wouldn’t stop.

He would just _laugh_ , and laugh, and laugh, until his breath rattled like dice inside the cage of his body and he could no longer convince his friends (himself) that everything would turn out okay.

Fuck.

Percy passed a hand over his face, only to jerk it away when he realized there were coils of smoke twining about his wrists as well. It wrapped slow and insidious about the pale skin like veins of rot, and all he could do was stand there and stare as he was slowly consumed. His fingers were trembling; his whole lanky frame shook like autumn leaves, and there was no saving him, was there? There was no—

The creak of a badly set stair was the only warning he had.

Percy closed his badly shaking hand into a fist and turned just in time to catch a flurry of impressions: a pale face framed by dark hair; leather and fur and a bright blue feather; eyes he’d willingly get lost in, if he wasn’t so lost already—and then the breath was leaving him in a whoosh as Vex jerked her arm up to press across his throat and drove him back three full steps to the far wall.

He slammed against it, unresisting. His skin prickled in instant, instinctive response: fight or flight, except he didn’t want to fight anymore and gods knew he never wanted to hurt her. It was more…this _desire_ burning inside him to reach up and frame her face. To kiss her finally, _finally_.

Except black smoke had poured from his lips, and he’d be damned if he ever let himself touch her after that.

And he was, wasn’t he? Truly damned, oh gods, that was too funny— _don’t laugh, idiot_. _Don’t let her see how close you are to the bloody ledge._

Those blue eyes were on him, boring into him. Vex stood so close he could feel her breath against his face, could smell that mix of wildness on her skin. It was the only good thing about this place right now, and even though his stomach had been churning with something cold and dark since stepping foot in Whitestone, a small part of him began to relax under her steady regard.

There was something seriously wrong with him that a threatening forearm across his throat made him relax…but then, he supposed he had always known he wasn’t quite like anyone else.

“Vex,” Percy said, voice a low, rusty thing.

She let out her own shaky breath, as tremulous as if she were fighting back tears despite the fierce gleam in her eyes. “Are you all right?” she demanded.

He let his eyes drop to her mouth, so impossibly close. “I think so.” More and more by the second. The black smoke had faded to nothing and he felt as if he could breathe again. He felt, almost, like himself again. What was it about this woman that could literally settle his demons with a glance?

“Look me in the eye, Percy,” she warned.

 _As you wish_. Meeting those eyes would never be a true hardship. She was so… She was beautiful, of course, but she was just _so_ … He didn’t have the words for it. Ironic, that he’d read so many books, studied so many languages, tinkered and explored and still failed to explain even to himself that look in her eyes, the way she tilted her head, the bloom of warmth that spread deep inside his chest every time she was near.

He didn’t have the word; Vex’ahlia, it appeared, was a language all to herself.

“ _Percy_ ,” she said, brows puckering in concern. He hated to see her so worried. Hated any more that she had just cause. At any moment, the coldness in his gut could expand and extinguish the petty flicker of his own control, and where would he be then?

Dead, he hoped. Gods, but Grog had _promised_ he wouldn’t let Percy hurt any of his friends. Wouldn’t let him hurt—

“Percy,” Vex said again. “Tell me you’re all right.”

“I’m all right,” he said. Then, because she clearly needed more: “I feel cruel,” _wrong_ , “but in control. This is controllable at the moment.”

She hesitated, studying his face. Then, slowly, she nodded—trusting him, even now. “All right,” she said, pulling back. He watched her watch him as she stepped away, those beautiful eyes tripping down his frame. They paused at his hands, then dropped to where the faintest hint of smoke lingered at the soles ( _souls, ha; oh gods_ ) of his boots.

He’d thought it had fled at the first sign of her, like a damn vampire in sunlight. Wrong again. He needed to remember he knew _nothing_ about this thing that had claimed him.

Percy cleared his throat, catching her eyes again. “I’m fine, for now,” he promised. It was the most and least he could do for her. “I’ll let you know.” But then, if he was possessed, would he remember how much he cared for her? He couldn’t risk trusting in that. “ _You_ will know if I’m not.” Not even Keyleth knew him better.

“Yes,” she said, eyes tracking each subtle emotion that crossed his face. “I will. I will be watching you.”

“Promise?” Percy said, fingers actually twitching with the desire to reach out and snag her hand.

Vex inclined her head in jerky nod. “Promise,” she said.

And that, he supposed, was that. All he could do was trust that she would keep her word. If she didn’t… _Well_ , Percy thought as he cleared his throat and moved past Vex down the hall. _There’s always Grog and his waiting ax to finish the job._

Funny-not-funny the way the macabre thought made him smile.


	21. Vex

In a perfect world, the discovery of Cassandra would have healed that wounded part of Percy’s soul. Or if not healed it, at least mended it a bit—the miracle of her safe return stitching tattered pieces rent by loss after bloody loss until he no longer seemed quite so desperately in danger of flying apart.

Until his literal demons were excised?

Gods, but she could only dream.

Vex sucked in a quiet breath, keeping close to her brother’s side and refusing to let herself steal quite as many glances at Percy’s dark profile as she wanted. They were deep within the bowels of the manor house— _his childhood home_ , she thought, and dutifully ignored the reflexive heartbreak—on the trail of the Briarwoods. The air was cold down here, damp, the tunnel walls seeming to close in tighter and tighter the longer they remained.

She wanted to rush ahead and _finish this_. She wanted to bring an end to both the literal and figurative night and, and, and bloody well _save him_ from what had to have been years of endless torment. _Fuck_. How had she traveled by his side for so long, how had she come to love him so much, and been so stupidly, blindly unaware of just how deeply he was suffering?

It was all over his face now. It was in the stoop of his shoulders as he sat just a little apart from the rest of them, a silent Cassandra slumped by his side. Vex shot them both another subtle glance, watching the way they seemed to breathe in tandem—in and out, in and out, the white of their hair and the broken bow of their bodies more painful to take in than anything she’d seen before in her life.

These two had been through _so much_ , and if that had been Vax by her side, she would have been wound like a snake around him, taking and giving comfort. But Percy and Cassandra just sat there, several feet—a league—an age—apart, slowly unraveling with every second that passed.

Maddening. It was so bloody _maddening_.

Gods, it hurt to see. It hurt even worse to know there was very likely nothing she could do. The deaths of Sir Kerrion and Professor Anders hadn’t healed him. If anything, the shadow that had been growing within him was even deeper than before. How much more could Percy hope to weather?

How long before she lost him too?

Vex drew in another stuttery breath, pressing a fist against her chest as if she could somehow ease the ache. Vax shifted at her side, shoulder brushing hers. He still smelled of blood and steel, reminding her of his own recent brush with death. Fuck. What would she do if he was taken from her the way all but Cassandra had been taken from Percy? Would she make some dream-swept pact with a devil? Would she track down his killers and demand their very souls?

Vex watched as Percy dragged his fingers through his hair, those clever fingers actually _trembling_ …and swore to herself. She pitched closer to Vax, worming an arm around his middle in a desperate bid to steal the comfort of his warmth, wishing she had the guts to cross the dark tunnel and do the same for Percy.

 _It’s going to be all right_ , she wanted to say, and had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from whispering the words aloud. She’d rather die than lie to him now.

Vax tilted his head, gently butting his skull against her temple. “When’re you going to climb out of your head and actually do something about it, Stubby?” he asked, voice dropped to a low whisper.

Vex startled, pulling away even as she turned toward him. His dark brows were lifted, mouth twisted into a complicated smile. There were shadows blooming beneath his eyes and a sallowness to his skin—near-death, it seemed, did not agree with him.

“I don’t— You’re not— _What?_ ”

Vax tilted his head toward where Percy and Cassandra sat, twin pictures of silent suffering. One brow inched subtly higher. “Sometimes you have to seize the day, sister,” he said. “Or some shadow beastie will come and seize it for you.”

No. No, she couldn’t be having this conversation now. She couldn’t be having it _ever._ This was supposed to be her secret flame, kept hidden, secret, safe. “Did you hit your head?” she said. She felt, all of a sudden, horribly _naked_ in front of them all—and not the good kind of naked where she _knew_ she was the hottest thing around. This was more like baring her underbelly to the flash of a blade, and oh, she didn’t like it at _all_.

Time for the offensive, then. “Seriously. What _are_ you on about?” Vex demanded, tossing back her braid.

“Come on,” Vax said, gently exasperated. “I’m your twin.”

She crossed her arms. “You’re annoying is what you are,” she said. “Ten minutes from the grave and already you’re giving me grief. Maybe next time I should let them finish you off.”

He gave a puff of breath, clearly amused. “All right, then,” Vax said, reaching out. She ducked away, but he was too fast, catching her about the throat with the arm she didn’t see coming—damn, tricky rogues—and yanking her close to his chest. Vex toppled forward with a muffled yowl, trying to fight back, hyperaware of her friends looking their way as Vax dragged her into something between a headlock and a hug, his lips pressed in a fierce kiss against her temple.

Just across from them, Keyleth gave a bright smile. Pike, shining gold with the grace of Sarenrae, muffled a laugh behind her hand. Percy…didn’t look up from his study of his gun, calloused thumb brushing over the crossed-off names in a way that had her heart freefalling in her chest. _Fuck._

“You never know when it’s the end, Stubby,” Vax whispered against her temple, breath rustling the fine dark hairs there. His free hand brushed back the blue feather, smoothing its delicate bristles, and she wanted to resent the way he’d forced himself into her heartbreak. She wanted to fight back against him and put some distance between them again.

Except…she wanted nothing of the sort.

Vex closed her eyes, unwelcome tears brimming hot beneath her lashes, and melted into her twin’s solid embrace. Gods, he was right. He was _right_. Any moment could be Percy’s last. They were walking into the deepest dark, on the trail of the people who’d ruined his life, and he would not stop until they were finished. There was a very real chance he would die today, and with so much darkness coiled about his very soul, it was possible not even Pike could bring him back.

She reached up, curling her hands around Vax’s forearm, fingers biting into the skin, and fought to swallow back a ragged sob. She could feel concerned eyes lighting on them before darting away, and fuck, fuck, she hated this feeling of being on display. Of raw emotion offered up where anyone could see. Of…love. Painful, terrible, frustrated _love_ for a boy who’d been lost to her before she’d ever even found him.

And fuck the world, fuck fate, fuck the very gods themselves for _doing_ this to her. Fuck Vax for making her want to spill her secrets here near the end of the line. It wasn’t _fair_. It wasn’t easy, the way his fumbling with Keyleth seemed to be. It wasn’t—

Percy wasn’t—

Percy could never—

Vex squeezed her eyes as tight as she could and held on to her brother for all she was worth, soaking in the comfort of his embrace as the man she loved and had already lost sat wreathed in darkness…staring down at his gun and slipping farther and farther away with every second that passed.


	22. Percy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for brief description of blood and a near-death experience.
> 
> Art, always and forever, by the incredible shalizeh7. Thank you so much for letting me take so much inspiration from your gift. <3

She was there.

She was _right there._

Percy stood on the high wall of the ziggurat and steadied Bad News on his shoulder, staring daggers at the woman who’d taken everything from him. He’d been shaking before, unsettled, but now it felt as if he were being drawn down down down into a straight line—into hyperfocus. It was just him, and her, and the space between them.

Space a bullet could shatter in a heartbeat.

 _Now or never_ , Percy thought, hands moving automatically. His muscles tightened as he focused, and he forced himself to take a moment—a breath—to relax. He could feel the susurrus hiss of shadows curling in the back of his skull, whispering _kill her, kill her now_ , but he managed to push that aside. He would face that _later_. He would face whatever had his friends whipped into a frenzy all around him _later._ What mattered now was—

Was—

_Kill her._

—was this.

The mechanism locking in place. The bullet hitting the chamber. The trigger tensing beneath his finger and Lady Briarwood’s eyes meeting his across the distance as Percy began to smile.

_BOOM!_

The gun kicked hard against his shoulder, jolting him back. Percy dug in stubbornly, watching with cold focus as Lady Briarwood’s own shoulder blossomed red. Blood spattered out like a flower unfurling, and gods, but it was beautiful; it was even better, knowing _he_ was the one who made her cry out. _He_ was the one bringing her pain.

 _Go ahead_ , Percy thought, eyes still locked on her even as he dropped Bad News to load his next round. _Fight back. Make me work for it. You’ll still be dead at the end of this._

And once her name was burned off his list, he would… He… He didn’t have time to worry over what would happen then. He only had time to prepare his gun, dexterous fingers moving automatically as Lady Briarwood stared up at him with blood streaking her pale cheeks, staining her fine dress, pooling about her feet. She stood unsteadily on the raised dais at the heart of the ziggurat, and there was _fear_ in her eyes: he could see it, even at this distance.

It made the darkness inside his gut _churn_.

The dark orb spun before her, flickering strange shadows across her face. The others were all here—were shouting to each other, darting about, fighting back—but for a moment, it felt as if the two of them were locked in secret conversation. In understanding.

 _You took everything,_ Percy thought grimly, lifting Bad News to his shoulder for another shot.

Those dark eyes narrowed on his, chin lifting. Then, unexpectedly— _chillingly_ —Lady Briarwood began to smile. He saw her lips move, and even over the distance of the battlefield, Percy swore he could hear the words she breathed as her gaze ticked toward his left:

_Not yet._

His blood went cold, freezing him in place even as she lifted one hand, elegant finger pointed straight at _Vex_. _No,_ Percy thought, shadows swirling and parting about his feet as he dropped Bad News a few inches: as if that would be enough to stop this. _No, wait, you can’t—_ “Vex!” he cried in warning, already knowing he was once again too late. He should have— He— If he’d only—

Vex looked up, startled, one hand steadying her broom. The battle had been a hard slog already, and blood streaked her pale cheeks. Dark strands of hair had come free from her braid, fluttering wild around her, and he was _too late_ to do anything but reach out, as if he could pluck her from the sky and pull her to safety.

And then, green fire.

It hit Vex in the chest, sending her jerking back. The end of her braid swung with the impact, and her eyes flared with sickly light. Percy watched, horrified, as necrotic energy swarmed across her, seeping away her vitality in an instant. He swore he could see the shadows bloom beneath Vex’s eyes, the hollows deepen at her cheeks and collarbone, the skin dry to parchment. Her hands clutched reflexively around the shaft of the broom as she crumpled forward—and yet by some miracle, she _didn’t fall_.

Percy watched, stunned, as the green light faded and Vex remained wonderfully alive, chest expanding and contracting with shuddery, panting breaths.

 _Alive_ , he told himself, staring up at her floating there like a ghost refusing to give up its form. _She’s alive. She made it._

He swung his gaze back to Lady Briarwood, relief transmutating into murderous glee, muscles shifting as he lifted Bad News again. He could see the shock and panic on her face, could practically feel the frustration rising off of her. The orb spun faster, shimmering, blood slowly spilling over the dark onyx sphere.

“Wait,” Keyleth said, sounding very far away. “Something’s…”

In a flash, the orb suddenly dilated down, becoming little more than a speck of darkness.

Lady Briarwood reared back, both hands lifting palm-forward. “No,” she cried. One of Vax’s blades flashed as it passed her, just missing; its gleaming steel whispered past the dark fall of her hair, stirring its ends in a deadly breath, but she was too focused on the orb to notice. “No, it can’t be too soon. Please!”

Another dagger flew, this one passing just overhead as she dropped to her knees. The unholy tangle of bodies writhing along the walls seemed to seize, spasming; Percy watched through the scope as they shrank back from whatever was happening up on the dais.

 _Kill her_ , the voice that had taken over his mind whispered, full of hate. _Do it, do it now_. But something else inside him was shouting a warning—one he could not ignore—and he dropped Bad News just as the bodies froze mid-writhe, their macabre limbs tangled in instant rictus.

His eyes flew back to Vex, hovering high above the platform, her shaken, weakened form barely hanging on. And in some strange kind of foresight, he knew—he _knew_ —what was about to happen seconds before the spell triggered.

“ _VEX!_ ” Percy shouted the moment all magic was snuffed out…and Vex’s flight came to an abrupt end.

She tumbled forward, twisting mid-air as the broom plummeted beneath her. He caught an impression of wide, terrified eyes in a too-pale face, the shadow of Lady Briarwood’s spell lingering—sapping her vitality to almost nothing. She was high enough up that a fall at any time would have hurt, but now, _now_ , gods now she was so weak he swore he could hear the rasp of her scream followed by the sickly _crunch_ of bones, the impact reverberating through him as shock colored the world in shades of red and black.

It happened so fast, none of them had time to do more than suck in a shared breath: one moment Vex had been hurt but alive, hovering above the dais. The next…

He dropped his gun, taking a shaken step forward. Only Keyleth’s hand clawing at his elbow kept Percy from stepping right over the edge of the high wall and toward his own fall. He froze, letting his friend hold him back, staring at the crumpled mess of robes and hair and twisted limbs. A bright halo of blood began to seep around Vex’s still form, a single blue feather carried by the steadily growing stream.

“Vex,” Percy whispered, stunned, even as Vax all but _howled,_ “VEX!” He was a blur of darkness out of the corner of Percy’s eyes, running and leaping over the edge. He tumbled, spun, lithe as a cat as he fell toward the hard ground, landing with a bone-jarring thud that would have felled a lesser man…and stumbling up in a staggered run a heartbeat later.

Vax didn’t even look at the witch huddled on the dais; he had eyes for nothing but his twin sister, already reaching for her even as he skidded to his knees through the growing corona of her blood.

“Pike!” one of them shouted, and Keyleth’s nails dug into Percy’s arm as the gnome pushed to the edge of the wall and peered over. They were so high up—higher still for someone so small—but there wasn’t even a flinch of fear in her eyes as she reached up to clasp her pendant with one hand, the other extended in a graceful arch.

He could practically feel the warmth of the healing spell as it wafted past him, filling his lungs with the scent of Whitestone in summer; green fields and secret things; books with freshly inked spines and his mother’s perfume clinging to the long fall of her hair…

…and then, just as suddenly, all of that was _gone_ as the spell fizzled, dying before it could reach the twins.

There was a stunned moment of silence, broken by Scanlan’s: “So magic doesn’t _work_?”

The horror of that—the hopelessness—was like a blow to the stomach. Percy sucked in a breath, eyes burning with fear, with rage, as he caught movement by the orb. Lady Briarwood was rising, her expression drawn; her eyes were locked on them and one hand was lifting again.

“Percy,” someone began, but he didn’t care. _He didn’t care_. He needed to kill this woman now more than ever, the sight of that single blue feather flecked in blood filling his vision, filling his mind, filling everything until there was room for nothing else. He choked back a noise and lifted Bad News, swinging it until the woman who had taken _everything_ from him was in his sights.

A year ago—a _week_ ago—the shot would have been for his mother. For his father. For all the brothers and sisters he had lost. It would have been for himself, for the vengeance he nursed day and night until it became its own living thing inside of him, whispering venom in his ears.

But now, in this moment, all he could see was the woman who had killed Vex’ahlia, and that was enough to have him trembling as he tightened his finger on the trigger…and sent a bullet winging through the witch’s chest.

It hit hard enough to send her sprawling back, flung in a spray of blood and snaking black hair. She hit the dais with a solid _crunch_. Fine robes sprawled around her, sodden within moments with blood; it pooled like a halo about her unmoving body, an unintended echo of Vex’s still form.

And he felt…

He felt cold. He felt suddenly so very cold as the first billows of smoke began rising around him—coiling like manacles about his wrists, his throat. Keyleth made a torn noise, and Scanlan gave a shout, as that dark whisper filled his mind, echoing like the bottom of his own personal oubliette: _Yes, yes, yes. Now. Do it. Do it!_

She was unconscious, but she wasn’t dead. Not yet. One more shot and he could change that. One more shot and he could end her, could destroy her, could feed her soul to—

To—

He sucked in a breath and steadied his aim, head full of static. It would be so very easy to kill her now and be damned, and his whole body quaked as he forced himself to adjust his sights away from Lady Briarwood’s exposed throat and toward one of her outflung arms.

_BOOM!_

Bad News echoed, and a spray of blood erupted from her still form: not enough to end her life, but more than enough to keep her down until they figured out what to do with her. _After_ , he thought, grimly ignoring the furious howls echoed through his skull, _we save Vex._

Because in this moment, in this crucible of choice, _that_ was what mattered. Not vengeance, not the demons in his skull, not whatever promises he’d unknowingly made. For the first time in as long as he could remember, _love_ trumped _revenge_ , and wouldn’t it figure he’d realize just how much that meant now, when everything was at its darkest?

“It isn’t working!”

The shout came from Vax, hunched over the body of his sister. She was in his arms, utterly still, streaked in blood. Viscous fluid dripped from lax lips, and Vax held an empty bottle of healing potion in one hand, expression shattered and confused as he looked up at them—barely acknowledging the shot, or the shouts, or the end of the bloody battle that had cost them so much. “The potion. It isn’t fucking _working_.”

“Get her out of the room,” Percy mumbled, feeling numb. Then, louder, “Get her out of the room!” The buzzing in his skull was excruciating—nearly enough to send him to his knees—but he pushed past it to focus. Briarwood was unconscious and Vex was dying. Despite the hissing of…whatever that thing was…inside him, he knew, _he knew_ , his priorities. He shoved his gun aside and fumbled for the forgotten rope. “We have to get her out!”

“I got this,” Grog said, then gave a shout as he jumped off the edge of the wall, hurting down to the ground below. He landed hard, stones cracking beneath his weight, grunting with the effort. Scanlan shrugged and hopped down after him, lighter on his feet. He hurried toward Vex and Vax in Grog’s wake, visibly limping, ankle twisted.

“Someone needs to see to that…thing,” Keyleth muttered, casting one worried glance toward Vex, and another toward Percy, before jumping down. He barely paid her any mind as she rushed toward the downed witch and the slowly spinning orb.

Vax was huddled over his sister, rocking her. “How do we get her—” he began, visibly desperate. Then: “ _Keyleth_ , we need vines!” He half-twisted as she hurried up the steps, expression crumpled up with frantic tears. “Fuck that bitch! We need to get my sister out of this room. _Keyleth_.”

“Doors’re closed,” Grog said, crouching just past Vax’s shoulder. Scanlan hovered nearby, one hand out as if he were tempted to try a spell, even as his eyes tracked Keyleth on her way up the steps toward the unconscious Lady Briarwood. “Need me to bust us out?”

 _No_ , Percy thought, coiling the rope, mind working a mile a minute. They’d already tried that; it would never work. They needed—

“We’ve got to get her _up_ and out,” Vax said, echoing the rapid direction of his thoughts perfectly. Then his searching gaze found Percy. “Percival, do you have a…” He spotted the lasso Percy was making and his expression relaxed a fraction. “Rope,” Vax finished.

“Catch!” Percy called down, anchoring one end of the rope around his waist and tossing the rest down. It hit the stone with a heavy _slap_ , and Vax was struggling up in an instant, Vex’s head lolling horribly against his shoulder. Percy had to force his gaze to tick to the left, _away_ from her still form as Grog took some of her weight and helped carry Vex to the waiting rope. They bound her up in it, ragged ends harsh against her skin, her sodden blue-and-brown armor. Gods, he needed to somehow banish the buzzing in his skull; he had to think, to _help_ her.

Vax stared up at them, his hands cradling his sister’s neck. “All right,” he croaked, voice breaking. “She’s in your hands. Pike, Percy, pull!”

“On three,” Pike began, but the excruciating thought of how _long_ it would take to get Vex up to safety—away from the field that dampened magic and toward desperately needed healing—was a coal in his chest. He couldn’t lose her. That was the only thought playing in repeat in his mind, beating back the howl of his demon and its eternal thirst for blood: he couldn’t lose her. He loved her. He couldn’t lose her. He _loved_ her.

“Catch her,” Percy ordered, then gripped the rope tight and ran blindly off the other side of the high wall, hurtling thoughtlessly toward the ground. He didn’t bother trying to slow his fall, to catch himself; his own pain didn’t matter. The hard crunch of impact didn’t matter. The feel of his skull smacking stone, the blinding white light, the horrible moment where he couldn’t suck in a breath— _none of that fucking mattered_ , because as he rolled over onto his back, gasping, he could see Pike with Vex curled in her arms, and that was bloody fucking _worth_ any pain he felt.

 _Heal her_ , he mentally chanted, unwinding the rope from his death grip. He tried to push himself up, palm skidding across the floor, slick with his own blood. Didn’t matter; couldn’t matter. His gaze stayed fixed on Pike and Vex as the little gnome laid her hand across Vex’s slack face. _Heal her, please gods, heal her._

Pike’s head jerked up, eyes round with horror. “It isn’t working!” she said. “We’re not far enough away.”

“Pull her out of here!” Vax’s howls echoed up from the other side of the wall, and Percy forced himself past the pain, struggling up even as his mind’s eye painted a picture of Vax desperately scaling the tangle of corpses that lined the other side of the wall: both of them, always, forever, fighting to get to Vex. “Pull her out!” His screams echoed uncannily through the ziggurat’s dark cavern.

“Take this!” Percy yelled, scrabbling at the edge of the rope. His nails caught, broke, but he managed to get it untied just as Grog’s grey head appeared over the edge of the wall, his giant hands hauling him up faster than any of the others could manage. Percy flung the rope, praying Pike understood: Vex needed a counterbalance if they wanted to lower her down safely. He couldn’t trust his own strength to catch her otherwise. “Lower her to me!”

Grog rose up, batting the end of the rope aside. “I got her,” he mumbled, lifting Vex from Pike’s grip. Huge arms enfolded her, and his big body briefly stole her from Percy’s view. His heart spiked in response, and he fumbled at his coat for the potion he was _sure_ he still had, waiting, waiting, _waiting_ as the seconds seemed to crawl by. If too much time passed, gods, would they lose her for good? Would she be snuffed out just like that, stolen before he could even tell her…

Before he could confess that…

“Vex,” he murmured with numb lips, watching with warring hope and despair as Grog cradled Vex close and leapt off the side of the wall. He landed not ten feet away, stone cracking beneath his feet—but his big body had Vex so carefully cradled that she barely moved. Then he was straightening, expression grim, and _running_ full-tilt away from the ziggurat.

Percy followed, sprinting as fast as he could manage. He was dimly aware of Vax yelling something from behind him, but there wasn’t time to take heed. There wasn’t space in his whole body for anything but _Vex Vex Vex_ as they put much-needed distance between her and that damned place with its magical null. The pound of Grog’s footfalls echoed up in uncertain syncopation, Percy falling farther and farther behind with each long stride—but he just pushed himself harder, forced himself faster, fumbling with the potion in his coat and praying for once in his miserable life.

 _Please,_ he thought, aching inside. _If there is justice in you, if you care about anything at all, save her._

As prayers went, it was the most heart-felt he had ever been in his life. And somehow, someway, _it worked._ He was losing ground, falling more drastically behind, and yet he still saw the moment her lifeless hand _twitched_ , curling weakly around one of Grog’s biceps.

“ _GROG!”_ Percy shouted, using the last of his breath. Behind them, there was an unhinged cry, and fuck, but there were tears streaming hot down his cheeks, but it didn’t matter— _it didn’t matter!_  Nothing in this whole wide world mattered except that Grog was slowing, stopping, blinking stupidly (wonderfully) down at Vex as she coughed and sputtered against the healing potion still on her lips; _working_ , thank the gods. Saving her life.

Grog turned, Vex sprawled in his arms as Percy stumbled up to them, Vax trailing some distance behind. Her eyes blinked slowly open, and she took them both in with a sort of gorgeous bemusement. One corner of her mouth kicked up as she rasped, “Grog, you smell terrible.”

Grog blinked again, then lifted her higher in his arms to take a sniff at his pits. The movement jostled her, turned her weak chuckle into a cry, and Percy reached up immediately to cradle the back of her skull. “ _Gentle_ ,” he scolded, other arm snaking around her. He had her cradled in his own arms between one breath and another, sinking down to the safety of the stone floor with her sprawled over his lap. Hazel eyes turned up to meet his, dark hair a tumbling waterfall around her, between them, and oh gods but each breath she took was its own answered prayer.

He was dazed, frozen in place by the hazy warmth of those eyes.

They weren’t alone. Grog was a step away, and Vax was seconds behind them, and Percy knew the moment he arrived, he would have to surrender Vex to her terrified twin, but for _one moment_ he held her cradled within his arms, revenge forgotten—demon vanquished even if it still swirled deep in his gut, spitting its poison—love, somehow, unexpectedly, triumphing here in the heart of his childhood home. She was smiling up at him tentatively, hopefully, as he reached with bloodied, battered fingers to cup the line of her jaw and lift her face to his.

Not for a kiss. He didn’t deserve a kiss; he was too twisted up, still, too broken for someone as shining whole and beautiful as Vex’ahlia. But in a moment of weakness, Percy let everything he was feeling shine through, forehead pressing to hers as he breathed in the scent of her, reveled in the beloved weight of her, let himself feel everything—everything—as she let out a soft breath and curled her fingers about his wrist in silent agreement.

 _I love you_ , he didn’t say; couldn’t, yet.

 _I know, you idiot_ , she may as well have replied. And, undeserving as he was, hurt as he was, broken as he was, Percy swore he could also hear in her soft, breathless laugh: _I love you too._

I love you too. As if loving him were ever a simple thing.

He let out a puff of breath, reeling inside; scared and hopeful and shaken and longing. There was so much he needed to do before he could earn that kind of confession, but it was a start. It was a first step; a _choice_ made, in this moment, between Vex’ahlia and the vengeance he’d thought for so long he wanted. He should have realized long ago that it would always, always be Vex his heart turned to first. Someday he’d be able to tell her that too. But for now, for this moment, until he somehow pulled himself out of this darkness…this, he decided, holding her close, grateful for every breath she took, would be enough to save them both. To make them stronger.

 _And here,_ Percy thought, beginning to smile—despite the demon in his chest, the fear in his heart, the revenge left to go fallow and forgotten, so very small compared to the enormity of almost losing the women he loved— _is to new beginnings._

To new beginnings…and to the end of a long and terrifying road he would never, _never_ have to walk alone again.

If this were the last slow curling  
Of your fingers in my palm  
If this were the last I felt you breathing  
**How would I carry on?**


End file.
